LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



ShelfJi/.;^... 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



r* 



NORTHWEST HOMES, 



B E I N O 



A BRIEF BUT COMPREHENSIVE VIEW 



OF 









II 



IN WHICH 



ALL THE COUNTIES ARE DESCRIBED SEPARATELY, 



OREOON AND WASHINOTON. 



ii^tiK 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



6|itp. ®xip|rig|i ^u. 

Shelf 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



Compiled by Alex. C. Wallace, 



COPYEiailT APl'i.lKD FOR. 



CLire homes and grow rich. 

A FEW REAS 

First. Its nearness to market and consequent 

in this particular. Every cent per ton saved on freigl 

Second. Extra quaHty of soil, being able to i 

Third. The great adaptability ot^ the soil to p 

making it the great dairy county of the State. 

Fourth. Its abundance of never falling spring 
Fifth. Protection from too much sea breeze. 
Sixth, Great educational advanta ges and exc 
cation. 

Below Is given a list of a (e\v of the many tract 
according to location and improvements. 



Pan 



No. 3. :i«6,700.— 130 acres, one mile north of For*^st Grove. Well improve 
outbuildings; in a good community. A fine location for g-ain, hay and t) 
balance on time. 

No. 4. $3,200.-162 HCres, 6^4 miles northwest of Forest Grove. 60 acres i 
wild grass, which makes splendid feed, 50 acres in hazel brush and wiliow. e 
timber ; all level land, a good orchard ; plenty of small fruit ; fair house ai 
bargain. Terms, $1,300 cash, balance on time at S per cent, interest. 

No. 5. $2,500.-160 acres, 83^ miles northwest of Forest Grove ; 75 acres i 
light hazel brush and young fir ; can be cleared at from $5 to $8 per acre. Pie 
well, and i.s a cheap farm. Terms. $1,600 cash, balance ©ii time. 

No. 6 $1,.S00.— S-t acres, 7 miles northwest of Forest Grove; 15 acres in cul 

hazel brush ; can be cleared at an expense of from $5 to $8 per acre. Very goo: 

two barns, plenty of fruit, such its apples, pears and plums. Terms, $1,000 cas 

No. 7. $2,400.-90 acres 6 miles northwest of Forest (rrove ; 40 acres in cuh 

brush; can be cleared ior $5 per acre. Good young orchard; fair house i\ 

buildings ; all kinds of small fruits ; 10 acres in "wheal. Terms, $1,500 cash, bti 

No. 10 $520.-52 ueres, 3 miles west of Forest Grove, covered with young 

paid for by hauling wood to town. Would be a fine fruit farm. Terms, $.300 c 

No. 11. $700.-52 acres, 13/2 miles from Forest Grove railroad statien; all li 

tion ; 8 acres slashed, balance in light brush; lair house and barn ; good y 

water. Terms, half cash, balance on time. 

No. 20. $1,550.-36 acres, l'^ miles southwest of Forest Grove, V^ mile i 
cultivation, balance in willow ; about 30 acres of this place is beaver-dam , a s. 
very desirable location and cheap. 

No. 16. $1,600.-160 acres 214 miles south of Forest Grove ; brush and timb 
No. 21. $1,680.-42 acres, 4 miles northwest of Forest Grove ; 25 acres in ci 
all slashed and briish burnt and sosved to timothy; is :^pendid pasture. Good ( 
fruit ; very good house and barn. Terms, $1,180 cash, balance to suit purchase 
No. 25. $3,330.-74 acres, % mile from Forest Grove ; all under fence and ii 
tion. Will sell for $45 per acre and give a lot, with house and barn in town o 
a number one bargain. Terms, one hlaf cash, balance on time. 

No. 27. $2,600.-75 acres, % mile south of Forest Grove; 37 acres clear; 4 
ance in willow not hard to clear; V<> mile from railroad station. All fenced. 
and cheap. Terms, one-half down,''balance on time 

No. 30. $5,000.-160 acres, 7 miles north of Forest <irove ; 70 acres in culivs 
sowed to grass ; is splendid pasture. Plenty of outsi<,ie range for stock. G( 



xf 



TO OREGON HOME SEEKERS. 



I'ortland is tlie great Metropolis of i|,is great Vnillu. 
ever detract from her assured future ^'rcatness si In- r 
lation of about JO.CXX), aggregatins: a capital of nJarlv'ir 
will be readily apparent. ' - ■ ■ 

..f o,M- vast domain. Its form is that of a large'basi'.f, "oin'r 
Fruit and Vcf^ci I.' '■ ' ,i iM'"|Hilalioii of'thTV™') 



A FEW REASONS FOR BUYING A HOME HERE. 

this particular. Every cent per ton saved on freight goes directly into the producer's pocket. 

Second. Extra quality of soil, being able to produce more varieties and better yields of crops than almost any otbcr localit -of 

Third. The great adaptabilit)- ol' the soil to production of gr.isses. clover growing with almost unparalleled ranknew and richness tl 
aking it the great dairy count)- of the State. 

Fourth. Its abundance of never failing spring branches and inexhaustible supply of fine timber in the jiear foot hills 

Fifth. Protection from too much sea breeze. 






•'" ^"'^'gty. a"J a thousand and one ..thcr reasons that will be cheerfully given on appli. 
f land in this vicinity, in my hands for sale, Prices range from $4.00 to $4000 per acie. 



Farms for Sale. 



Forest Grove for sale < 



Lrd'the West Side train at the Oregon ami California depot, Hortlaiic 

E!- E;. IVmL-X-ESR, 

Real Estate Agent, Forest Grove, Oregon. 



E. E. MILLER, 



arm.'t, 




Forest GcToyg, Oregon. 



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III pi 






NORTHWESTERN HOMES. 



BEING A BRIEF BUT COMPREHENSIVE YIEAV OF 



Oi'ejon and Wa^iing^on Temtoi^j. 



X AVHICH ALL THE COUNTIES ARE DESCRIBED SEPARATELY 



BOTH IN OREGON AND WASHINGTON. 



" A home is a home if ever so poor." 



COMPILED BY ALEX. C. WALLACE. 



' COPYRIGHT APPLIED FOR. 




POETLAND, OEEGON: 

F. A. DUNHAM, BOOK AND JOB PRINTER. 

1888. 



J' 



"Copyrighted 18S8." 







INTRODUCTION 



In introducing this little work to the public, the au- 
thor begs leave to state that he is not a college graduate, 
but that he only received a country school education, 
and therefore he hopes that his readers will excuse all 
ungrammatical sentences that may occur in this little 
volume. This work was not written for the benefit of 
Harvard graduates, or college professors, but solely for 
the benefit of homeseekers, who may be interested in this 
particular section of Uncle Sam's domain. There have 
been several small pamphlets published concerning Ore- 
gon, some gotten up by the railroad companies, and some 
by the immigration bureau. It is a well known fact that 
the railroad company will brag up and make a paradise 
out of any place, where their road leads into, so they can 
sell tickets and railroad lands; while immigration bureaus 
generally exalt certain localities at the expense of others. 

The author is not interested in either railroad or immi- 
gration bureau. A great portion of this work is derived 
from my own personel experience and observations, and 
the rest is from perfectly reliable sources. 

I am under obligations to the Oregonian for aid in 
this work, also to the Coos County Herald, and, last but 



INTRODUCTION. 

not least to Mr. Clayton Packard, editor ofthe Eye, at 
Snohomish City, AV. T. 

Hoping this work will be received in a kindly spirit. 
I remain, the home-seekers friend, 
Respectfully Yonrs, 

ALEXANDER C. AVALLACE, 



O H E G M 



AVESTERN OREGON. 

What is commonly called AYestern Oregon is that 
part of the state west of the Cascade mountains and 
south from the Columbia river to the Umpqua river 
valley. It is divided into four natural sections, 
called the east and west sides, the Columbia river 
section and the coast section, and comprises thirteen 
counties, namely: Multomah, Clackamas, Marion. Linn, 
Lane, Douglass, Columbia, Clatsop, Washington, Yam- 
hill, Tillamook, Polk and Benton. 

Western Oregon is the famed webfoot country, so 
nicknamed for its moist climate, but the banter is easily 
endured when it is considered that the frequent rains se- 
cure a mild and equable climate and all the advantages 
of constant fertility. This is the section occupied by the 
original settlers of the country and it has always been 
the most populous and advanced part of Oregon. It has 
four general lines of railroad, two on each side of the 
\\^illamette river, possesses all but three or four of the 
considerable towns of the state, has various fine educa- 
tional institutions, and is in all respects a thoroughly 
established country with little of the new element of pop- 
ulation and nothing of the reckless spirit of a new 
country. 



6 OEEGON. 

The chief county in point of wealth and population 
in Western Oregon is 

MULTNOMAH. 

The area of Multnomah is least of any county in the 
state, and its percentage of good land is less than any 
other county in Oregon, but it contains the City of Port- 
land which alone puts it at the he ad of the list. Multno- 
mah, however, is not without agricultural resources; the 
low lands extending along the Columbia river are not 
sufficiently broad for the raising of grain in profitable 
quantities, but they are highly fertile and well adapted 
for small fruits, market gardening and dairying, and their 
nearness to Portland, and its constant market for produce 
are great advantages. No agricultural lands in Oregon 
are so profitably worked as are the fields of this narrow 
district, and yet, there is space for a much greater pro- 
duction, for which there is a sure market in Portland at 
high prices. The hills west and south of Portland though 
rough are rich and thrifty, orchards and farms abound 
in them. In this mild climate it is not necessary to seek 
for sheltered nooks. Multnomah county has little or no 
farming land in the ordinary sense, but it has consider- 
able areas finely adapted to the most profitable class of 
rural industries. There is great need of market garden- 
ers and dairymen in this county. The Portland market 
is so illy furnished with produce and dairy products that 
it imports fully half of its annual supply from California. 
Butter is even brought across the continent. Prices for 
all kinds of produce are high, fully forty per cent, higher 
than in Eastern and Western States, and the misfit of the 
supply and the demand is due almost wholly to the lim- 
ited number of producers, and to their lack of enterprise. 
The City of Portland is treated of elsewhere in this book 
and need not be mentioned here. 



OKEGON. 



CLACKAMAS 



County lies directly south of Multnomah. It is much 
larger than its neighbor, covering an area of nearly 1500 
square miles. The greater part of this wide territory is 
hilly or mountainous and much of it is of but little value 
except for timber, and as a stock range. It has much 
good valley and prairie land however, and its annual 
surplus of grain is large. The level tracts of Clackamas 
county are occupied, but in the foothills there is still 
much valuable space open to settlement under the govern- 
ment land laws, or to be bought on easy terms from the 
0. & C. R. R. Co. which acquired its lands by grant from 
Congress. A considerable district of Clackamas County 
is within easy drive of Portland, and so available as a 
field of domestic production. Market gardening, for the 
products of which there is so great a demand, can be car- 
ried on with profit as well in Clackamas as Multnomah, 
and the hill and foothill lands in the northern and east- 
ern part of the county are admirably adapted to dairying. 
The range is good throughout the year so that but little 
feed is used in winter, excepting for milch cows, and from 
the rough character of the country much of it will remain 
unsettled, and free open range for many years. Clacka- 
mas has several towns, but none of much importance ex- 
cept Oregon City. It was the pioneer town of Oregon, 
and though its destiny is not in keeping with the ambiti- 
ous hopes of its founders who expected to see it rival San 
Francisco, it is a place of considerable and growing im- 
portance. It has twenty or more stores, a large woolen 
mill, two large merchant flouring mills and a general 
assortment of the trades. But it is destined in time, and 
we hope the time is not to be long, to become a seat of 
manufacture. The Willamette Falls, just at hand afford 
a water power Avhich never fails or freezes, and which is 
sufficient to turn the mills of the gods; the woolen and 



8 OREGON. 

other mills of Oregon City are all run by the power of the 
falls. In the western part of the county and about mid- 
way between Oregon City and Portland there are large 
iron deposits which have been worked successfully for 
several years. The works at a village called Oswego, on 
the banks of the Willamette are soon to be enlarged, 
machinery for an establishment to employ a thousand 
men being now on the ground. The population of Clack- 
amas County is not far below 18,000, and the county is 
well provided with schools and churches. Clackamas 
has four rivers running through it, viz: Willamette, 
Clackamas, Molalla and Pudding rivers, and the three 
named are full of good fish, and plenty of wild game such 
as ducks and geese, and there are pheasants, grouse and 
quail, and plenty of deer and bear out in the mountains. 
Improved farms are cheap in this county, $1,500 will buy 
a good 80 acre farm with buildings and improvements; 
farm laborers receive from twenty to thirty dollars per 
month and board. School teachers get thirty to forty- 
five dollars per month and board. There are also eleven 
saw-mills in this county. 

MARION. 

Is another of the east side counties and is situated direct- 
ly south of Clackamas. Its eastern boundary is the Cas- 
cade range of mountains, and the Willamette river 
separates it on the west from Polk and Yamhill Counties. 
It extends for about sixty-five miles north and south 
along the river and its north and south boundary lines 
almost meet at the mountains. Marion strictly speaking 
is an agricultural county. Its general character is flat, 
though it has a good area of foothill country in its eastern 
and northern sections. It is finely wooded and watered 
throughout. Its chief product is vv^heat, of which it is one 
of the largest producers in the State. It has long been 



OKEGOX. 9 

settled, and throughout presents the settled features of 
an established country. Except in the foothills it has 
not much vacant land. The prairie sections are all 
owned by individuals, and almost the entire area is under 
cultivation. Like all the counties of Vf estern Oregon, 
Marion is finely adapted for dairying. The unfailing 
moisture keeps the pastures green the season through. 
Vegetables and fruits yield magnificent crops. The prin- 
ciple town in Marion county is Salem, which is the capi- 
tal of the state, and the seat of all the state institutions. 
The city has about 7000 people and takes rank in the 
points of population, wealth and volume of business next 
to Portland. It has a fine water power and is already a 
seat of manufacture, as well as a large farming center. 
The Willamette university one of the oldest schools in 
the state is located at Salem. Good improved farms in 
Marion county can be bought for from twenty to forty 
dollars per acre. 

LANE 

County lies south of Linn county. It extends east and 
west from the Pacific ocean to the Cascade mountains a 
distance of 120 miles and covers an area of 120 town- 
ships. Fully two-thirds of this great area is capable of 
cultivation, and not more than one-third of it is occupied. 
The pupulation of Lane, which is now in the neighbor- 
hood of 14,000, could with advantage, be multiplied many 
times over. Most of the county is rough and moun- 
tainous, but even its highest points are available for 
pasturage, which is green and good the whole year 
through. Hops and wheat are th§ chief products of the 
county. Wool, too, is grown but not in such quantity as 
would be expected in a country so well adapted to sheep. 
The opportunities for enterprise in this line are fine. 
Good sheep ranches may be bought cheap, and the out- 
side range to be had for nothing is as wide as could be 



OEEGON. 



desired. An important and rich section of Lane county 
lies along the coast. The Siuslaw river, a fine stream, 
puts into the ocean at the western extreme of the county, 
and along its valley there are large tracts of excellent 
land. About seventy families have settled there in the 
past seven years, and the section is certain in a short 
time to be well populated. Siuslaw river is easily entered 
by schooners, but as it has never been regularly sur- 
veyed by government engineers insurance companies v/ill 
not underwrite vessels putting in there, and the people 
have difficulty to receive goods or ship their products. 
Having to take their own risk vessel owners charge un- 
usualy high prices, and the hardship falls upon the 
people. The government ought to survey this bar at 
once. The Siuslaw is a fine fish stream and the salmon 
put up there by a local cannery command a high price 
in the San Francisco market. Land in Lane county is 
comparatively cheap, and in great supply, while educa- 
t^ional and other growth of civilization have been long 
established. Lane county offers a field for more varied 
industry than any other of the Western Oregon counties. 
The grain farmer, the stock raiser, the hop grower, the 
lumberman, the dairyman and a score of others find the 
conditions for their diff*erent occupations at hand, while 
the comparative cheapness of lands, its character and 
a climate somewhat more genial than that of the northern 
counties are potent inducements. The county is gradu- 
ally receiving an excellent class of newcomers, and as a 
consequence business of every kind is prosperous. This 
is particularly apparent in Eugene, which for many years 
has gone along in a ^umdrum dead-and-alive state. 
Eugene is one of the pleasantest places of residence in the 
state. It has the constant attractions of cheerful and 
beautiful scenery, and of location near the river, and dur- 
ing the summer months it enjoys the wholesome ventila- 
tion of the ocean breeze. Its streets are regularly laid 



OREGON. 11 

out; and are better shaded than those of any other in the 
state. The state university is the chief distinction of Eu- 
gene, and a great feature in its social hfe. From it the 
place takes a high nigral and intellectual tone and this 
is an advantage it will always enjoy. The population of 
Eugene City is 3,200 and its business is that of a thrifty 
country center. There are also over a dozen other 
smaller towns in the county. To the man of limited 
means I do not think Lane county will fail to suit him, 
or to the man with capital for there are numerous open- 
ings for all kinds of business. Land is far cheaper here 
than in Marion county. I believe I have said all that is 
necessary concerning Lane county. We will now pass on 
to a review of 

LINN 

• 

County which lies just south of Marion and which shares 
with the latter its eastern and western boundaries; is the 
southernmost of the eastside counties. Like Marion it is 
an agricultural county, and it has too, some fine water 
pewer and the beginning of a manufacturing industry. 
Linn county produces large quantities of wheat and flax, 
and stock raising is carried on in a limited way in many 
parts of the county. The principal town in Linn county 
is Albany, which occupies a pretty, level site on the bank 
of the Willamette river. It has a population of about 
3,500 and is the center of a large farming district. Like 
Salem it has a fine water power and three large flouring 
mills are run by it. While Albany cannot be said to be 
a progressive town, it is a thoroughly established and 
substantial one, and as the population about it increases 
its business will increase, and its property values ad- 
vance. Brownsville, Lebanon, Halsey and Harrisburg 
are thriving towns, each with its share of local business. 
The Brownsville woolen mills is one of the best manufac- 
turing establishments in the state. Most of the prairie 



12 OEEGON. 

land in Linn county and in fact all the land in the neigh- 
borhood of the railroad is in the hands of individuals who 
ask high prices — from $15 to $70 per acre — but there are 
fine locations in the foothills which may be taken up at 
the cheap state and government rate, under the land 
laws, or bought from the railroad company. Linn county 
has more foothill land than any other. It is so common- 
ly believed that all the land in the Willamette valley is 
occupied that new comers looking for locations on unim- 
proved lands are never directed that way. Unless the 
intending settler has capital and desires to buy an im- 
proved tract Ke is told on all sides that it is useless to go 
into Western Oregon. It is a fact which seems not to be 
generally known that some of the best areas of unsettled 
land in the Northwest lie in the foothills on both sides of the 
Willamette river. It has not been occupied because it is 
from twenty to thirty miles from transportation lines, but 
this disadvantage of location is not so great as it appears 
for stock raising, sheep farming and for various other 
branches of rural industry, the little isolation is no disad- 
vantage at all, but rather a benefit because of the wider 
outside range for grazing which it affords. The lands in 
question are of four classes — government, state, railroad 
and university — and they may be obtained cheaply and 
on easy terms. In Lane, Benton, Polk, Yamhill, Clacka- 
mas and Washington counties, similar opportunities 
exist. And it may be said that other conditions being 
equal. Western Oregon offers in its climate and soi]^ 
abundant timber, good water, and proximity to markets, 
advantages which are lacking in the great region east of 
the Cascades. Western Oregon is by no means filled up 
' and there is plenty or room for thousands of families to 
find and enjoy a comfortable home in a land free from 
tornadoes, cyclones and earthquakes. Here in this part 
of the country, the industrious immigrant of small means 
from the east or south may purchase improved lands at 



OEEGOX. 1 3 

from $5 to $25 per acre, upon which a comfortable home 
for life may be made, no place in America where a living 
can be'^ more easily made. He may here raise wheat, 
oats, barley, rye, flaxseed, apples, pears, plums, prunes, 
qunices, cherries, blackberries, grapes, strawberries and 
other small fruits and berries, besides garden vegetables, 
such as potatoes, cabbages, beans, peas, onions, radishes, 
tomatoes, parsnips, turnips, and in fact every variety of 
vegetable suitable to the climate of the temperate zone. 
All of these, cultivated and cared for in the proper man- 
ner, yield abundant returns. Here, he may have a few 
hogs for his own meat, besides some bacon to sell. A 
feiv good miJk cows for butter which, if fine grade, always 
sells for ready cash. The sluggard will find it hard to 
make a living here, and should not come. The shiftless 
will wage an unequal warfare in the battle of life here as 
he does elsewhere. There is no room for him here. If 
the intending immigrant has been led to believe that he 
can live in luxury and ease here without labor, if he has 
become imbued with the belief that a fortune, or even a 
good living for his family can be acquired here without 
the exercise of great care, much hard labor and a spirit 
of determination to succeed, as well as the greatest in- 
dustry, let him at once be undeceived. The kind of peo- 
ple needed here are those who can take off their coats 
and by hard labor and industry make the wild forest to 
blossom as the rose. 

The yield of wheat ranges from fifteen to forty-five 
bushels per acre, and the quality is unsurpassed even by 
the choice wheat grown on the famous wheat fields c^ 
Minnesoto and California. It often weighs as high as 
sixty-five pounds to the measured bushel. Oats often 
yield 60 to 70 bushels per acre, and a measured bushel 
will weigh from 39 to 43 pounds. 

I will now give a brief review of 




14 OREGOK 

DOUGLAS 

County, which is the southernmost of the so-called West- 
ern Oregon counties. Like Lane county which lies 
directly to the north, it extends from the Cascade moun- 
tains to the ocean. Its population is thinner in propor- 
tion to its area than is that of any of the other long 
settled counties. The long distance from the Portland 
market and the consequent high freight rate has hindered 
the general production of grain for export, which in ^all 
the Willamette valley counties is the chief industry. 
Still, some hundred of tons of wheat are shipped from 
the Douglas county warehouse each year.* The famous 
Umpqua river runs its v/hole length through Douglas 
county, and in its valleys are found the best farming 
lands of the county. The general character of Douglas 
county is rolling, and it affords for sheep the finest range 
in the world. Not even the famous highlands of Scot- 
land are better adapted for the production of fine and 
firm wools. The climate is somewhat dryer and warmer 
than that of the northern counties, and all the conditions 
of range are favorable. So marked is the superior! ty^of 
the Umpqua valley wool, that it has always been a favor- 
ite in ihe market, and brings from two to six cents per 
pound more than the ordinary wools of the country. The 
liocks of the Umpqua valley form a large feature of its 
wealth, but the free public range would easily support 10 
sheep for every one now upon it. Fruits of all the temp- 
erate kind grow well in the Umpqua valley as elsewhere 
in Western Oregon. There are fine patches of timber in 
^1 parts of the county, and along the coast are magnifi- 
cent forests of fir and spruce. The latter are fast being 
worked up in the large export mills- at Gardiner, a village 
on the lower Umpqua river near the ocean. The exports 
of Douglas county are lumber, fruit, wheat, wool, cattle 
and general produce. In every branch of production 



OEEGOX. 15 

there is room for tenfold expansion. Land is niiich 
cheaper than in the Willamette valley, and the country 
is fairly well provided with school and church facilities. 
The chief town of Douglas county is Roseburg which is 
near the center and on the line of the Oregon and Cali- 
fornia railroad. A railroad to connect Roseburg with the 
coast part of Coos Bay is projected, and this will certainly 
add largely to its importance. The population of Rose- 
burg is about 1500. A large portion of the vast territory 
embraced in this county remains unsettled and unsur- 
veyed, and nearly all of it will be valuable either for tim- 
ber, agriculture or grazing. East of Roseburg is a vast 
section of country undeveloped, and we might add, unex- 
plored, as but little is known of it. The Smith river 
country, lying north and west of Drain station, is perhaps 
the best part of the unsettled portion of the county. The 
river heads in the mountains some fifteen miles due north 
of the town of Drain, and flows nearly due west, and 
empties into the bay or inlet at the mouth of the Umpqua, 
two miles below the town of Scottsburg. The east fork 
some five miles above its junction flows through a beauti- 
ful level plain, from one-half to two miles wide on either 
side of the stream, with small fir timber near the banks, 
showing that the country has once been a burn. The 
land close to the banks of the stream is higher than back 
near the hills, where numerous prairies of swamp grass, 
with scarcely any timber abound, some of them contain- 
ing from fifty to one hundred acres, in a place which to 
make them first class farming lands, needs nothing but a 
drain to the river. From the forks down to tidewater, a 
distance of eighteen or twenty miles, the bottoms on each 
side are similar, save that the growth of timber is larger. 
Considerable logging has been done on the lower part of 
the stream. The foothills or bench land next to the bot- 
toms are covered for nearly the entire length of the river 



16 OEEGOX. 

with a large growth of heavy fir timber of the best quali- 
ty. The drifts have been cleared out so that saw-logs 
can be floated down the entire length of the stream. 
There are numerous small streams flowing from the 
mountains on either side of the river, with bottoms in 
many places sufficiently wide to make good farms. 
Within the past year a number of persons have settled 
on the* east fork of the river and are about to commence 
building a wagon road from Drain across the mountains 
to their settlement, which will in time be extended down 
the river to tidewater 

We will now proceed to a description of 

COLUMBIA 

County. Public estimation has held the county south 
^of the Columbia river, and north and west of Port- 
land, as a rough, mountainous district, excepting in spots 
near the river, almost valueless but for its timber. On 
the contrary it is a region of surpassing excellence, and 
affords opportunities for a .great variety of enterprises. 
The first interest of any region is, of course, in its adapt- 
ability for general settlement, and the country lying along 
the Columbia river is naturally highly favored in this re- 
spect. For fifty miles north from the foot of Sauvie's 
island, along the river, and for several miles back from 
the river the country is wooded, but not \\ holly with the 
dense forest growth, seen in passing up and down on the 
boats, and which seem to extend inland indefinitely. 
Each of the many creeks, w^hich find their way into the 
Columbia, drains a wide area of bottom land, generally 
lightly overgrown with ash o!r maple, and the higher 
lands which nowhere rise into mountains, are fertile and 
easily susceptable of cultivation. These lands are not at- 
tractive to general immigrants from a prairie country, 
but they meet the taste of comers from timber countries. 
It costs more to get a farm under way there than a prai- 



OKEGON. 17 

rie district, but there are many who deem the special ex- 
pense more than compensated by the advantages of loca- 
tion in a timbered region and near water transportation 
to market. The lands in this river district ought to be 
public, but they have been gobbled up by speculators till 
nearly every foot is owned. The greater part of it is for 
sale at about double the government rate or $4 per acre. 
They yield fruit and vegetables in abundance, and are 
finely adapted for dairying. Among the settlers now in 
the country, not one who in the beginning was able to 
fairly establish himself has failed to thrive. Aside from 
farming and stock raising, and the general tradeswork 
necessary in every community, the chief industry is log- 
ing. The hea\dest logs are easily floated down the creeks 
in the wet seasons, and nearly every farmer is, to a great- 
er or less extent, a logger also. Millions of feet of timber 
are floated out each yesn, and the proceeds of its sale are 
largely applied to the development of the country. The 
logging industry while it cuts down the timber, helps 
clear the land, leaving it available for all-tke-year-round 
pasture, even before the stumps and small brush are re- 
moved. Logging progresses at all seasons, and affords 
steady employment to all who choose to work at it for 
wages. Many settlers put in such time as they can there 
in opening their farms and earn their maintenance in the 
logging camp. Another industry which engages men of 
small capital and rewards them fairly, is that of making 
shingles, There are, too, a few portable sawmills, which 
with the labor of three or four men can cut three or four 
thousand feet of ct^dar per day. The resources of this 
section in iron, coal, and water power are sufliciently ^ell 
known, and in course of time, things will without d jubt 
be developed. To the settler however, these advantiges 
are of no value. The river section is already so well set- 
tled, as to be provided with school and mail facilities and 



18 OEEOOK 

it is well provided with market and shipping points in St. 
Helens, Columbia City, Kainier and Westport. A great 
many of the farmers living on the banks of the Columbia 
make considerable money in the fishing business. Catch- 
ing salmon pays well this fall, they get four cents a 
pound for all they can catch, and some days they catch 
from five to twenty fish to the man, and each salmon will 
weigh from 15 to 45 pounds. 

CLATSOP 

County is the extreme northwest county of Oregon. Its 
area is nearly equal to that of Clackamas, but it has 
comparatively little bad land. Its best agricultural 
lands are along the tide sloughs which indent its frontage 
on the Columbia and its bottom lands near its dozens of 
creeks and rivers. The largest body of level land extends 
along the coast south of the entrance to the Columbia 
river, and is known as Clatsop plain. The first agricul- 
tural settlement in Oregon was here. From Astoria a 
few settlers found their way to the stretch of rolling prai- 
rie by the ocean, and from that time, till now, it has been 
the seat of a fairly prosperous agricultural industry. 
Clatsop plain is about twenty miles long north and south 
and varies in width from one to two miles. Its soil is a 
light loam and sand, easily cultivated and highly pro- 
ductive. Its climate is the ordinary climate of Western 
Oregon in winter with a constant moisture in Summer, 
which keeps its pastures always green. Everywhere it is 
well watered, and timber in abundance borders the east- 
ern margin. The chief industry of Clatsop plain is that 
of butter and cheese manufacture. In no locality in the 
wide world are the conditions for dairying more favorable 
than here. An unfailing verdure, a cool an equable cli- 
mate, rich native grasses, abundance of pure, fresh water, 
nearness to market, all the conditions are there in per- 
fection and all made highly valuable by constant demand 



OKEGON. 19 

and high prices for dairy products. But with all these 
advantages Clatsop plain is only fairly prosperous. It 
could easily support fifty cows for every one that now 
grazes upon it. Satisfied with "well enough" the people 
live along in a quiet way and allow the finest opportuni- 
ties to pass unimproved. An infusion of enterprise into 
the "strip by the sea" would make it one of the finest 
localities in Oregon. The favorite watering place in 
Oregon is Clatsop beach. Along the tide lands and creek 
bottoms mentioned above, there are large settlements and 
all are prosperous. The conditions of life in these locali- 
ties are not luxurious, but they are by no means hard for 
those who have industry. Travel everywhere is by water 
and settlers go by steamboats, or in their own boats pro- 
pelled by sail or oar. Communication with the market 
town of Astoria is cheap and easy, and the residents 
think themselves better off tha.n those, who must get to 
market by road or rail. The products of the county are 
the general agricultural products of Western Oregon. In 
no county in the state is their such variety of employ- 
ment for the wage worker. It is estimated that a million 
and a half of dollars is paid out annually for labor in 
fishing and logging. It is a common thing for immi- 
grants to settle upon government land, which may be 
kad for the taking, and to work in the fisheries in sum- 
mer, or the logging camps in winter, the while making 
such improvements on their settlements as they can. To 
clear a place in the timber is the work of half a lifetime, 
but it may be done by degrees at a comparatively light 
cost. For dairying — and in this branch we believe the 
opportunities are more in^dting than in any other — it is 
not necessary to clear the land. If it be thoroughly 
burned over and grass seed sown in the ashes, it yields 
fine crops which cattle easily harvest for themselves. 
Being near the coast, snows are infrequent and- never lie 



■iO OEEGON. 

on the ground longer than a few hours. Three-fourths of 
the land of Clatsop county is mountainous and only val- 
uable for their splendid forests of timber. I have seen a 
seven acre tract produce $14,000 in saw logs, and 400 
cords of wood, which at $3,00 per cord brought $1,200. 
Of course it took lots of money to put this amount of 
saw logs in the river, from where they are towed by 
steamboat to some of the large sawmills in Astoria, Port- 
land, or some of the mills along the majestic Columbia. 
The logs are, after being dumped in the water, construct- 
ed into a huge raft, held by boom logs, and 600,000 feet 
is no uncommon size for these rafts. This year the log- 
gers get $5 per thousand for choice large logs, and less 
for small logs, and for piling they get six cents a lineal 
foot, and they are cut from twenty to seventy feet long. 
Good men are paid the following wages in the Columbia 
river logging camps. Ox teamsters, called here "bull- 
whackers"- get the highest wages, from $80 to $120 a 
month and board. Sawyers get $60 to $70. Swampers 
and barkers get from $45 to $60 a month, skidders the 
the same as sawyers, and greasers $50 a month. Young 
men of the east, do you realize the difference in the 
wages you receive in the east, and the wages that are 
paid here, and besides, here you would only work ten 
hours while in the east a hired man niust work on the 
farm till sundown, and then milk three or four cows after 
supper. There are several hundreds of logging camps in 
Western Washington. Territory alone, and most all of 
them run nine months in the year, and some of them 
run the entire year. There are also hundreds of sawmills 
and they run the year round and furnish employment 
to thousands of men who receive big wages, and then 
three out of every five of these men, when they work four 
or five months, will go to Portland, and in a few days or 
v/eeks they haven't got a dollar left, then they will go 



OKEGON. ^:\ 

back to some other camp or sawmill and go to work 
again. What is wanted in this country is steady, sober, 
industrious young men, that know how to save their 
money when they earn it. 

We will now give a brief review of 

TILLAMOOK 

County, which is a strip along the coast, south of Clatsop 
county. It is about seventy -five miles long, north and 
south, with an average width of thirty miles. It is very 
sparsely settled, owing to its isolation heretofore, but a 
schooner freight line has been put into service between 
Tillamook bay and the markets of Astoria and Portland, 
and the trip is now easily and quickly made and rates 
for freights and passage are low. The country is finely 
adapted to small farming and dairying, and stock 
raising, and land is literally "dirt cheap." Two bays 
easily approached from the ocean afford ample port facil- 
ities, and numerous small rivers and inlets make trans- 
portation cheap and easy. I do not believe that any 
section of Oregon offers better advantages to the settler 
of small means than Tillamook county. The county is 
new and little has been done in the Yv^ay of school house 
and church building, but the soil is rich and cheap, and 
the market is easily reached. The timber of Tillamook 
county will be a source of great wealth, when it shall be 
made use of and that cannot be long delayed. There is 
plenty of room for a thousand families to find and pro- 
cure a comfortable home for themselves in Tillamook 
county. Uncle Sam's land is there in plenty, only wait- 
ing to be taken up, so young man why will you toil and 
sweat, and labor in the east for sixteen dollars a month, 
with no prospect of bettering your worldlv condition so 
long as you stay, while if you come here, and take you a 
home in the forests of Oregon, in three years time you 
will have a comfortable home of your ov/n, from which no 



'22 OEEGON. 

one can drive yon away. I speak from experience as I 
am not a born Oregonian, but was born in the good old 
republican state of Ohio in 1856, and I left Ohio in 1875, 
and I landed in Oregon in 1881, and in the intervening 
years have lived in Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, Missouri, 
Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Arkansas, Colorado, New Mexi- 
co, x4.rizona, California, Washington Territory, British 
America, and have finally concluded to make Oregon my 
future home. I was looking for a country where I could 
find all the conditions perfect, and without a drawback, 
but at last I have come to the conclusion that such a 
country does not exist. What would you people of the 
east think if I were to tell you the largest town in Tilla- 
mook will not number 100 souls; yet such is the fact. Yet 
here is land rich as any in America, a fine salubrious 
climate, scarcely any winter, and no severe heat in sum- 
mer no earthquakes or cyclones, no drouths or failures in 
crops, yet this county is almost uninhabitable, and why 
is it so? First, because it is some seventy odd miles 
from the nearest railroad, with the coast range 
mountains lying between, and therefore somewhat incon- 
venient to get at, and second, because hundreds of people 
in the east, who would count this small inconvenience no 
obstacle at all, do not know there is such a place as 
Tillamook county, Oregon, and scarcely any of those who 
may, by chance, have heard the name, know a^nything of 
the many advantages possessed by this county. It is the 
aim of the author of this book to give you people of the 
east this necessary imformation. Tillamook county has 
several small rivers, all emptying into the ocean, and 
along these rivers are magnificent forests of fir and cedar. 
All along the big and little Nestucca river can be found 
fine bottom land, and some of it very easily cleared, and 
when once cleared, ten acres of it are worth more than fifty 
acres of the old worn out land of the east. I know of 
several farmers here in Oregon who have raised five hun- 



OREGON. ' 23 

dred bushels of potatoes to the acre, I beHeve I have 
said all that is necessary about Tillamook county. I 
will only add, that to the home seeker, there is no better 
opening in Oregon. 

AVASHINGTON 

County is the most northernly of the "wes<t side" coun- 
ties, its eastern and northern boundery being within only 
a few miles of Portland. One third of its area is prairie 
grain land, and two thirds covered with oak, fir and 
cedar timber. The great feature of Washington county 
is the Tualatan plains, a series of level prairies, very 
closely connected, and affording thousands of acres of 
rich land, almost every foot of which is under cultivation. 
Washington county as a whole, is a prosperous farming 
country and its industries, besides agriculture are those 
which attend upon agriculture and are almost a part of 
it. The land is much too valuable for general stock rais- 
ing, but no county in Oregon has so much good stock as 
has Washington. The annual county fairs held at Hills- 
boro, the county seat, attract from the county alone, a 
better exhibit of blooded horses, cattle, hogs, sheep and 
fowls than the state at large turn out for the fair of the 
State Agricultural society at Salem. People throughout 
the county are well to do and are well provided with the 
comforts and even luxuries of rural life. Good, houses, 
good barns, fine wagons and carriages and most of the 
material blessings of life abound. Washington county 
like all the Willamette valley counties has been of late 
years almost wholly devoted to wheat growing, but during 
the past three years intelligent efforts have been made to- 
wards diversifying its industry. Another year it will 
produce hay and fruit in larger quantities and ere long it 
must become to a great extent, the garden of the Portland 
market. The principal towns of Washington county are 
Hillsboro, the chief business point and county seat. Forest 



24 OEEGON. 

Grove, a "school town," also a good business place, and 
Cornelius which lies between them, and is the point of 
railroad shipment for a considerable section of surround- 
ing country. The population of Hillsboro is about 1200, 
that of Forest Grove about 200 less, and that of Cornelius 
not more than 200. They are thriving farming centers, 
and are substantially built towns, well provided with the 
privileges of churches, schools, and a good general society. 
Forest Grove is the seat of the Pacific University, one of 
the oldest educational institutions of the state. It is a 
chartered college with a preparatory department, and is 
celebrated throughout Oregon for excellence of discipline, 
thoroughness of instruction and for its high moral tone. 
The settler in Washington county may find good foothill 
land for the taking up, but if he would establish himself 
in the prairie districts near the railroad, he must pay 
fancy prices, from $20 to $100 per acre, and I know of 
some fine land, near the town of Beavertown, that is held 
at $200 per acre. This land is principally used for pro- 
ducing onions, and it will produce 700 bushels to the 
acre; and they sell here readily at from seventy-five to 
one dollar per bushel, and this year one man raised 650 
bushels of potatoes to the acre. Such is Washington 
county. 

YAMHILL 

County lies south of Washington, and between the Coast 
range of mountains and the Willamette river. Its name 
the corruption of an Indian word signifying "a ford" has 
been the butt of many thousands of poor folks and doubt- 
less will always continue to amuse small willed people. 
Yamhill county has produced more men of mark than all 
the other counties of the state together, and many promi- 
nent men in Oregon are vain of having started in Yam- 
hill. Like its neighbor, Washington county, Yamhill is 
distinctly a farming section, but in many respects is a 



OEEGON. 17 

better county. The soil of Yamhill county is undeniably 
superior to that of Washington county,^ though the difference 
is fully equalized by the advantage of nearness to the market 
of Portland enjoyed by the former. The surface of Yamhill 
is in the main gently rolling, the hills to their very summits 
producing magnificent crops of wheat, which for excellence or 
quality is not surpassed anywhere in the wide world. Yamhill 
has more pasture land than Washmgton, and much more stock, 
but the latter is not of such hisjh grade. Wheat and stock 
raising are the chief industries. As a people, the residents of 
Yamhill are unusually prosperous. In no other county o^ 
Oregon is the average of wealth so great. There are in Yam- 
hill at least fifty farm-houses with all the modern conveniences 
and in fact all the luxuries of city homes. Houses costing 
five thousand dollars and upward are common throughout the 
country, and well built and filled barns attest the general thrift. 
Schools are maintained in every district through several months 
of the year, and neat chapels in which religious services are 
held, stand in sight of each other the county over. The prin- 
cipal towns of Yamhill are McMinnville, Lafayette, Dayton, 
Sheridan and Amity, and there are half a dozen or more good 
trading points. Lafayette is the county seat, and is a substan- 
tial town of about one thousand inhabitants. It is a point of 
shipment on the Yamhill river during a great part of the year, 
and is the centre of a very rich farming district. McMinnville 
is on the line of the O. & C. R. R., and is a bustling place. 
Before the days of the railroad it was comparatively a dull place, 
but the whistle of the locomotive waked it from a long sleep, 
and it is now one of the most energetic railroad points in the 
state. The McMinnville college, an old and very excellent 
establishment, is located here, and has quite a large number of 
students, whose presence gives the town a very pleasant social 
activity. Dayton is a river point, and terminus on the Yamhill 
river of the narrow-gauge railroad, which runs through the 
southern part of Yamhill county and the northern part of Polk 
county. It differs not from any other points in its vicinity^ 



18 OEEGON. 

being the seat of a steady local trade. Amity, and the various 
other points are thrifty local centers. In Yamhill, as in the 
counties of Willamette valley, lands are held at a high figure. 
Willamina, a small town of three hundred people, situated in 
the extreme western part of Yamhill county, and ten miles from 
the Grande Ronde Indian reservation, is a beautiful little town, 
nestling at the foothills of the Coast Range of mountains. While 
land here in Yamhill county is held at high prices, yet it is not 
as high-priced as same quality of land in Washington county, 
owing to nearness to Portland of the latter county. In fact, 
some very desirable land can be bought in Yamhill county at 
$20 to $80 per acre, all well improved, with buildings and 
orchards. I believe at this writing, it is the only county in the 
state that is out of debt. In my business of canvassing sales- 
man, I have found the people of Yamhill county were better 
supplied with money than the people of any other count/ in 
the State of Oregon. Another very profitable industry that is 
ibeginning to assume shape in the Willamette valley is that of 
prune growing. Mr. S. A. Clarke, of Marion county, one of 
the largest prune growers in the state, says in a late issue of 
the " Oregonian" : '* I commenced planting out my prune 
orchard in 1875, and have*planted out continually since, until 
I have over six thousand trees of the best varieties. I doubt 
if any orchard of the kind in Western Oregon has better soil 
and location. At six years old plum and prune trees begin to 
make returns ; and I have never known that, at that age, they 
average over half a bushel of green fruit to the tree, and very 
seldom that much annual yield. Last year I sold my dried 
prunes as follows : Petite prunes 10 cents a pound, Italian 
prunes 12 ^c, and Golden Drops the same. Let us suppose 
a man has twenty acres in prunes, set fifteen feet apart, or two 
hundred to the acre, he would have four thousand trees ; and 
if he would average as many bushels, he would be fortunate. 
His own labor would do all the work of pruning, plowing and 
planting to fill vacancies, and he could keep up a small nursery 
to recruit from. If growing Petites and Italians, he should have 



OKEGON. 19 

65,000 pounds cured prunes to sell ! All the cost of gathering, 
curing and packing would not amount to 2^ cts., and perhaps 
not over 2 cts. a pound. If he averaged 8 cents a pound for 
Petites and 10 cents for Italians, he would have 6^ cts. per 
pound remaining over all expenses of saving and marketing his 
fruit. Six and a half times 65,000 pounds clear $4000 a year 
as an average profit on twenty acres of land." 

POLK 

County is directly south of Yamhill, and like the latter, lies 
between the Willamette river and the Coast range. Its area of 
about thirty townships is pretty equally divided between level 
and rolling land ; and it is beautifully watered and timbered 
throughout. Its eastern half occupied by the farms, is among 
the best developed sections in the state. Polk is a farming 
county, and its industries are all incidental to the business of 
farming. There is some stock raising, but it is carried on as 
part of a general business. Almost every farmer has a few 
head of cattle, horses and and sheep. Much attention is paid 
to blood ; one of the finest flocks of sheep in the state being on 
the hill ranges south and west of Dallas. The eastern or hilly 
section of Polk is covered with fine hard-wood and fir trees, 
which with the growing demand for lumber, must soon become 
valuable. This hilly land also affords fine range, and is espe- 
cially adapted for sheep and stock pasturage. There is not a 
distinctive fruit farm in Polk county, or in fact but one small 
one in all the west-side counties. Each farmer has from one 
to five acres of orchard, which receives but little care. Apples, 
pears and small fruits grow well, however ; and now that rail- 
roads have made it possible to market fruit in the fresh state, 
more attention will be paid to fruit culture. The chief towns 
of Polk county are Dallas, the county seat. Independence and 
Monmouth. Dallas is about fifteen miles west of Willamette 
river at Salem, and is a sprightly inland town of about nine 
hundred people. Its business is that of a large farming center, 
the various branches of merchandise being represented by 



20 OREGON. 

general and graded stores. It has several very substantial brick 
buildings and a number of really very handsome residences. 
Good schools maintain a high educational and moral standard- 
Independence is on the west bank of the Willamette river, and 
is a rival of Dallas for the honors and advantages of the county 
seat. Its location on the 0.& C.R.R. and on the river gives it 
special advantages as a shipping point, and attracts to it a great 
share of grain of the county. Independence handles at least 
one -third of the wheat grown in Polk county, and is the center 
of a great trade. It has improved more in the last five years 
than any other town in Western Oregon, this improvement 
being due to the advantage of location and to the enterprise 
of its business men, who leave no effort untried which promises 
welfare. to their town. Monmouth is considerably smaller than 
either Independence or Dallas, and is a quiet " school town." 
It enjoys, however, a steady business from farmers near at hand. 
Christian College is Ipcated here, and attracts attendance from 
all parts of the state. It is conducted on excellent principles, 
and among its graduates are numbered several of the brightest 
young men in Oregon-. Perrydale in the southern part of the 
county is another good trading point. Land is som.ewhat 
cheaper than in Yamhill ; but owing to location of the county. 
Government land is pretty scarce, as it has very little foot-hill 
land, but good improved farms can be bought at $25 per acre. 

BENTON 

County is the largest in the west-side chain. It extends from 
Willamette river on the east to Pacific ocean on the west — a 
distance of about sixty-five miles — and its width is about forty 
miles north and south. It is less densely settled than either 
of the other west-side counties, but it is perhaps richer in native 
resources than any other—certainly its resources are of greater 
variety. Its eastern third is level, alternate prairie and light 
black land, and the remainder is timbered hill land admirably 
adapted for pasture. The level land of Benton is almost 
exactly like the level lands of other Western Oregon counties. 



OREGON. 21 

It is well watered and timbered, rich in soil — in short, a farmer's 
paradise ! It is thickly settled, and has been for many years ; 
its principal products are wheat, stock, vegetables, fruit and so 
on. The western or coast section of Benton is a fine stock 
country, but it is scarcely occupied at all. The hills originally 
covered with dense forests, have been burned over, and are 
now comparatively open. The debris of the burned forest has 
enriched the soil to a highly productive state, and peculiarly 
adapted it for various " tame" grasses. The hills are seamed 
with creek and river bottoms which yield hay, or in fact any 
thing planted, in abundance. The climate is a softened ocean 
climate, and the extremes of heat and cold are not known. 
Snow is rare and never lies on the ground more than two days 
together. Benton has a large share of coast country, and a 
natural harbor at Yaquina bay. Its western part, particularly 
the Yaquina country, is rapidly filling up with immigrants. 
Within the past four years, Benton county has received a large 
immigration from England — and the new-comers are, for most 
part, of the better class of people. The principal town of Ben- 
ton county isCorvallis, the southern terminal point of the west 
side division of the O. & C. R. R., and on bank of the Willa- 
mette river. It has a population of two thousand, and it is 
not only a local center, but is the distributing point for the 
whole of Benton county and the western part of Lane. It has 
two banks, fine stores, good residences, and wears an air of 
enterprise. A line of railroad connecting Corvallis with Ya- 
quina bay was completed about two years ago, which willaid 
greatly in filling up the coast part of the county with industrious 
immigrants. At this writing, fully two-thirds of the coast part 
of the county is yet vacant and open to settlers. Of course, 
most of the coast part is rough aud mountainous, but is a fine 
country for stock-raising. Newport, a small seaport town that 
is situated on the bay, has more than doubled its population 
since the railroad went through two years ago. It has now 
about six hundred inhabitants. Yaquina City and Toledo are 
still smaller towns, situated further up the bay. To the home- 



22 OEEGON. 

seeker of the overcrowded East, I would say : Come to Benton 
county ; leave your family (if you have one) at a hotel in Cor- 
vallis, and take the train for Yaquina City. There you can 
stop over night, start next morning on foot, and almost any of 
the settlers in the sparsely-settled portion will help you to find 
a desirable vacant piece of land, and will give you all necessary 
information as to the number of that section, the range, town- 
ship, and so forth. Roseburg is the U. S. land office for this 
district. Remember, friends, that in a few more years vacant 
land will be very scarce on the Pacific coast, and there is no 
more desirable place to live, in the world. No place where an 
honest living can be more easily made. Corn cannot be raised 
in the Willamette valley of sufficient quality to fatten a farmer's 
own hogs for his family meat. A few varieties of early corn 
are raised in the garden for roasting-ears, and then they are 
not ready for eating until the first of August, and last till first 
of November. The nights here are always cool, and therefore 
vegetables do not grow so fast as m the East, but our growing 
seasons are much longer here than in the East. Peaches do 
not do well here, although some few are raised, and the Dorn 
Ore^onians think they are immense, but I tell them they should 
taste the peaches grown in old Arkansaw! It is my aim to 
give in this little work all the disadvantages of the country as 
well as the advantages. Railroad companies and immigration 
agents tell you of all the advantages possessed by Western 
Oregon, and leave you to find out the disadvantages after you 
get here ; but I shall endeavor to " hew to the line, let the chips 
fall as they may." The Cascade Range of mountains extends 
throughout the entire length of the state from north to south 
parallel with the Coast Range, and these two ranges are from 
one hundred to one hundred and twenty miles apart, and be- 
tween these two mountain chains lies the far famed Willamette 
valley, the garden spot of Oregon. This valley is 'one hundred 
and forty miles in length by ninety-five in average width, and 
contains about eight and a half million acres. The Calapooia 
mountains mark its southern boundary, in which rises the 



OREGON. 23 

Willamette river, that flows north through the entire length of 
the valley and empties into the Columbia river about twelve 
miles below Portland. No valley in America is better supplied 
with running streams of pure, clear water. In no country on 
the globe is water ^more universally and easily accessible by 
digging. No county is better supplied with timber for building 
and fencing purposes. Its cHmate, agricultural and other 
resources, I will now briefly describe. 

CLIMATE. 

To a person raised in such a climate as lUinois, Iowa or 
Missouri, the climate of the Willamette valley may seem to be 
peculiar. In a general sense there may be said to be but two 
climatic seasons here, the dry and the wet season. The wet 
or rainy season begins usually about the middle ot November 
and lasts till the first or middle of April, during which period 
it rains a great deal. Of course, there are days and even weeks 
at a time during this period that are dry, sunshiny and very 
pleasant. Strange as it may appear to persons raised in other 
and different climates, this season is very healthy, and the more 
continuous the rain the better the health. When we have 
two or three weeks of clear, chilly, frosty weather, it breeds, as 
a rule, diphtheria, scarlet fever, coughs, colds, and the like. 
One of the happy conditions of the cUmate here, and one that 
makes this country a desirable one in which to make a perma- 
nent home, is the fact that cyclones and hurricanes, and even 
storms, are unknown. High waters that do so much damage 
in other parts of the country are very rare here, there having 
been but one occurrence of the kind since the settlement of the 
country, and that was in the winter of 1862 — owing to an im- 
mense amount of snow which had accumulated in the Cascade, 
Calapooia and Coast mountains being melted off very rapidly 
by a very heavy warm rain which swelled the Willamette and 
its tributaries to overflowing, when considerable damage was 
done. Lightning and thunder are also very rare. The pre- 
vailing winds in winter are from the south, and are always moist 



24 OKEGON. 

and damp. It is a rare thing to have either snow or frost when 
the wind is in the south. Occasionally we have wind from the 
north in the winter season, but such winds coming from the 
Arctic regions are attended with more or less frosty, and some- 
times freezing weather. The prevailing winds of the dry season 
are from the north, and except during a heated term are very 
exhilerating and pleasant. Sometimes we have snow here to a 
depth of from one to eight inches, but it rarely remains longer 
than a few days. The summer or dry season here is of the 
most pleasant character, being not hot and sultry, but pleasant 
and sunshiny and of a very cheary nature. Nights as a rule 
are cool and no place can be found on earth, where the weary 
man will find more pleasure, comfort and benefit, physical and 
mental in the arms of "natures sweet restorer," than in the 
Willamette Valley. Many persons are told of so much damp 
weather during the winter are apt to believe that health would 
not be good, but such is not the case. All the old settlers will 
truthfully tell you that the moist damp weather in the winter is 
the most healthful period of the year. The health record in 
Oregon makes a more favorable showing than that of any other 
state in the Union. We do not have the same degree of heat 
here that people who live in the same lattitude east of the 
Rocky Mountains are subjected to. Thermometer here marks 
90 decrees the heat is not so oppressive as the same degree in 
the Mississippi Valley, for, as a rule, when the thermometer ' 
reaches the above indicated degree here, by four or five o'clock 
in the evening of such days the weather has so moderated 
through the influence of sea breezes which at that hour begin 
to sweep over the valley, that a woolen coat is often required. 
The nights are refreshing and invigorating. Scarcely a night 
during summer but that one or more blankets are required 
while sleeping. The thermometer marks 20 degrees above 
zero ordinarily in the coldest days of winter. Once in the 
history of the country (winter of 1874-5,) the thermometer 
marked lo degrees below zero. These are the *'hard winters'^ 
to which Oregonians refer when discussing the weather. But 



OREGON. 25 

on neither of these occasions did the cold last more than two 
days. Sometimes quite heavy snows fall here, but they soon 
melt away under the softening influence of a chinook wmd. 
In the east, when in summer when the thermometer gets up to 
80, people seek the shade — in this state they seek the sunshine 
from choice. There is a tonic in it at that temperature. The 
mean average temperature in July is 68, that of January, 45 
degrees. Another strong argument in favor of our climate is 
in its agricultural production. The superior quality of our 
wheat, famous the world over, clearly establishes and enforces 
the fact that we have the sunshiny days and long cool nights, 
less intense heat in the maturing months necessary for the per- 
fect growth of the highest grade of wheat. Not only this cer- 
eal, but the best climate for oats, rye, barley, hops, vegetables 
and fruits of all kinds and berries of every kind imaginable 
as belonging to the temperate regions. In a word, the climate 
of Oregon develops a rich vegetation, ripens abundant harvests 
and is favorable to the growth of a strong healthy race of peo- 
ple. The impression often obtains in the m nds of those who 
read about the moist character of the climate here that the 
rainfall for th^ year must exceed that of any other state, but 
this is by no means the case. The average yearly rainfall in 
the New England States is 47.85 inches, Middle Atlantic 
States 46.42; South Atlantic States 59.01; Gulf States 55.00; 
Ohio Valley States 49.39, while in Oregon the average yearly 
rainfall for the last six years is about 44.00 inches. In the 
settled portions of the country, there are school-houses in 
every district. The average salary paid male teachers is $42.27 
per month of twenty days. The average salary paid female 
teachers is $32.97 per month of twenty days. In the cities 
and towns male teachers receive from $75 to $125 per month 
while female teachers receive from $35 to $60 per month. In 
most all parts of the state there is a very friendly, healthy feel- 
ing with reference to our public schools, and the intending 
immigrant need have no fears on that subject. Of course, 
when immigrants go away out in an unsettled part of the 



26 OKEGON. 

country and settle down, it will take a few years for the country 
to grow and fill up sufficient to support a school 

SOUTHERN OREGON. 

The section of the state known as Southern Oregon, con- 
sists of the counties of Coos and Curry, which lie along the 
southern coast, and the counties of Josephine and Jackson 
which occupy the space between the coast mountains and the 
Cascades, and borders on the California Hne to the enormous 
county of Lake, which lies still farther to the east and which 
also borders on the California boundary. The three sections 
differ widely from each other in soil, surface and climate. The 
coast section is rough and heavily timbered, with the usual 
moist climate. The middle section is warmer both in summer 
and winter than Western Oregon and much less moist, and the 
Southern is cool in winter and hot in summer like Eastern 
Oregon. The longest settled section is that of Jackson and 
Josephine, though they are but yet sparsely populated. 

JACKSON 

County is the seat of old population and, indeed, of the most 
important interests in Southern Oregon. Its area is over 2000 
square miles, but the greater part of the surface is mountain- 
ous. Its principal productive section is the Rogue river valley 
which is about fifty miles long with an average width of fifteen 
miles. Agriculture is well in progress in this valley and in var- 
ious other smaller valleys in the county, but as there has never 
been any means of transportation, it has been limited to sup- 
plying the local demand. But this is greater than in any oihet 
part of the country, owing to extensive local mining operations. 
About eight hundred men are engaged in working the rich 
placer fields in the Rogue river valley and in two score or 
more gulches, and these form an excellent local market. The 
towns, Jacksonville and Ashland, too, draw their whole produce 
supply from the valley, and Jackson County is under a warmer 
sun than Western Oregon and its products more nearly re- 



OKEGON. 27 

semble those of California than of this state. Corn, which in 
no other part of Oregon yields a full crop, grows here to almost 
the fullest development, but not quite equal to that raised in 
the east, while sweet potatoes and other semi-tropical products 
grow in perfect thrift. But it is its fruit which most distin- 
guishes the county; and peaches, grapes and the whole list of 
general and small fruits yield in the highest excellence of size 
and flavor. Hitherto, little attention has been paid to fruit 
production because there has been no way of getting it to mar- 
ket, but the Oregon & California railroad which passed through 
here two years ago, opens up the Portland, and in fact, the 
eastern market, and we learn that the fruit business will now 
be pursued on a much larger scale. Mining has been the 
chief industry of the country for many years. Its annual out- 
put of gold is about $120,000 per year; but while this output 
is growing larger each season, other industries are reaching to 
the fore, and mining will soon fall several ranks, and general 
farming, including fruit growing, which as stated above, is still 
more important interests than mining, 
and stock raising will soon be equal to either. The rough foot 
hill land of Jackson afford fine range and the stock interest is 
constantly growing. With commendable enterprise the people 
have imported good blood in both horses and cattle, and some 
of the finest stock in the state is to be found here. The popu- 
lation of Jackson County is not the usual population of a min- 
ing country. Mining is here followed as a legitimate business, 
fairly certain and only moderate in its rewards. There is no 
"rich to-day, poor to-morrow" class and nothing of the reckless 
spirit so common in mining countries. The people are a re- 
liant class, accustomed to helping themselves and they are well- 
to-do almost to a man. Owing to the situation of the country 
as well as to the sparse population in proportion to the area of 
the country, lands are not as high in proportion in Jackson 
County as the Willamette Valley. Good improved farms can 
be bought ar from $15 to $50 an acre, the last named figure be- 
ing for the very best places, especially well improved Jack- 



28 OREGON. 

sonville, a prosperous town of 1400 inhabitants is the chief 
business point in the county. Ashland with over 1000 popu- 
lation is not far behind. The notable features of the latter 
town being a collegiate school and a woolen mill. The popu- 
lation of the county is now about 13,000. 

JOSEPHINE 

is a mountainous county west of Jackson with a population of 
3000. Its chief industries are mining and stock raising. Like 
Jackson, it contains fine timber lands. It has some good agri- 
cultural fields which will be developed now that the railroad 
has penetrated it, and there is no reason why it should not di- 
vide honors and profits with Jackson as a fruit garden. There 
is plenty of vacant land in this county. As the soil, climate 
and productions of Josephine County are identical with Jack- 
son, it is not necessary to dwell at greater length on a review of 
this county, so we now pass on to 

coos 

County, which is a small county, as counties go in Oregon. Its 
industries, which are very large in proportion to its population, 
cluster about the coast part of Coos bay and the Coquille 
river. Coos bay is one of the richest sections of the state; 
the region all about it are underlaid with coal, and no less 
than five large mines are constantly worked; their output being 
shipped in steamers and sailing vessels to San Francisco. The 
writer of this work has traveled all over this county, and I con- 
sider it one of the very best counties of Oregon for immigrants 
to come to, so I will give a full and exhaustive sketch of this 
county as it is to-day. The Coquille valley is situated in the 
southern part of Coos county and is penetrated by the Coquille 
river which drains the major part of said county and also a 
portion of Douglas and Curry counties. The frontage on the 
Pacific ocean is quite extensive. The land for the most part 
is mountain and bench, but there are many creek bottoms on 
which are situated some of our larfi;est farms, and the Coquille 



OREGON. 



29 



river and it? four forks have large bottoms. The upland is 
principally timbered and is free from rocks, except in a few lo- 
calities. The scope of country drained by the Coquille and its 
tributaries is about 90 miles in length, and extends from Camas 
valley, Brewster valley and Johnson's mountain to the sea, and 
from 20 to 50 miles in width and extends from Coos river 
mountains to Rogue river mountains. The streams emptying 
into Coos bay drain the northwestern part of Coos county, and 
the land is of the same general description as the Coquille val- 
ley, only being more limited in extent. 



CLIMATE. 

During the winter and spring months the privailing winds 
are from the south, bringing with them warm rains, insuring a 
bountiful harvest in the summer and fall; while in the summer 
the cool sea breezes from the northwest mitigate the heat which 
in most places of the same latitude is extremely oppressive dur- 
ing that season. To show how even our temperature is, we 
give the following table, which is the report from the signal ser- 
vice office at Bandon for 1884: 

~" ' "— -- ^ 

'^ 

o 



January . . 
February , 
March . . . 

April 

May 

June 

July 

August . . . 
September 
October . . 
November, 
December. 










14 



2, 



p 

(A 

2, 

£. 


43.08 


4.60 







40. II 


9.72 


13 


II 


4 


45-07 


5-29 


3 


13 


2 


40.04 


3-9^ 


I 


13 





52.69 


-43 







e 


55-47 


1-25 










58.12 


1 .04 










58.00 


.04 










54-37 


5-12 





12 





50-97 


3.12 





9 





50-12 


3-93 


3 


7 


• 


43-58 


13-65 


I© 


16 


I 


50-05 


52.12 


44 


103 


7 



32 OREGON. 

is in the eating of it." So the proof of the richness of the 
soil is in its productions. 

STOCK RAISING AND DAIRYING. 

There is not a place anywhere, that stock can be raised 
with better profits than here. One can not find a place in our 
mountains so barren, that a limited amount of stock can not 
be kept on wild range alone. And the matter of increasing 
range is so easy that it can be made limitless for a mere nomi- 
nal sum. There are good ranges lying idle in our mountains 
that have come from grass getting started on burnt woods, that 
would accommodate hundreds of cattle, and the chance for 
making others similiar to these can be enumerated by the area 
of the country. Grass being such a natural product — four to 
five tons of hay growing on an acre— the dairying interests 
must be manifest. Down the coast in southern Coos and 
northern Curry, dairying is the principal industry, scores of 
tons of butter being shipped to San Francisco annually. As a 
wool producing section, few places are better adapted. Swine 
do well, often getting fat enough for pork on myrtle mast. 
Feeding even for beef and mutton is never resorted to except 
on over-stocked range, and as fat meat as cati be seen any- 
where can be seen at the markets in every month in the year. 
In fact, the fattest meat seen here the past year were just off 
the mountain ranges in December and January. There is no 
lack of good healthy running water for stock, nearly every 
forty-acre tract of land having a good stream of living water. 
Stock are subject to none of the diseases that prevail in other 
sections, and our market is good, buyers always perambulating 
the country. The prices of cows are $20, $30 and $40, and 
other cattle in proportion. Horses range from $6© to $150. 

LANDS. 

Public lands are to be had in many townships by homestead, 
pre-emption or private entry. The lands suitable for farming 
are mostly owned, but there are valuable places for stock- 



OEEGON. 3S 

raising to be had, and also valuable timber claims. In fact, 
stock-raising is so much more profitable than farming, that 
places can be had for the taking that are worth more than 
farms which are held at several hundred dollars. Good bot- 
tom land on the river can be bought at from $to to $50 per 
acre, but bottom land in cultivation is considered cheap at 
from $30 to $70 per acre. As a matter of fact, the lands situ- 
ated on the navigable waters of the Coquille river, and streams 
emptying into Coos bay are best adapted to farming, since the 
hauling reduces the profit; but stock can be raised to better 
advantage further back where they can have access to mount- 
ain and hill ranges. This resolves itself to this: If you want 
to farm get land on the river and as near market or navigation 
as possible, and to do this, you will have to buy of first pur- 
chasers to get much of a place. If you choose stock raising, 
take up a place or buy out in the hills or creek bottoms, where 
you will not be too much crowded. There is no land to be 
found that will not produce fine grass if cleared. There are 
thousands of acres of "burnt woods" on which stock can be 
kept in good condition the year round. A few places of this 
kind have been taken, but there are scores of miles without a 
settler. Very recently the Coos Bay Wagon road company put 
their lands upon the market and the prices are $3 to $10 per 
acre. These lands are of every class, from the best to the 
poorest. There are fortunes to be made by securing the tim- 
ber lands now vacant. 

TIMBER Il^TERESTS. 

The timber interests of Coos county, and particularly that 
of the south half of the county are so immense that to exag- 
gerate them would be foolish in anybody, for the bare truth 
would appear unreasonable to persons from the Eastern States, 
and the exaggeration would fail of its purpose — that of con- 
viction. This might also be said of the coal interest. The 
San Francisco Examiner of a late issue, says: "It has often 
been said, and rightfully so, too, that Southwestern Oregon be- 



34 ONEGON. 

longs virtually to California, Everything produced there comes 
to San Francisco, whereas this part is unknown to the balance 
of the state, except in a judicial sense. This is particularly so 
of the counties of Coos and Curry, which cover an immense 
amount of territory which is running over with wealth. They 
are the richest counties in the state in natural wealth, being a 
vast coal bed from one extreme to the other. There is to be 
found nearly every variety of coal known, and in quantities 
incalculable; every river, creek and rivulet, exposing croppings 
of, in many places coal of the finest quality which is used and 
pronounced by local blacksmiths the best. Over this immense 
coal field is to be found a never-ending forest of the nest 
timber known. The immensity of the forests, — or rather for- 
est, for it is without a break for hundreds of miles, extending 
for the most part from California to the Columbia river — can 
not be estimated nor described with anything like accuracy. 
There are the following varities of timber: Fir — red, white 
and yellow; Cedar — red, white and yellow; Maple, Ash, Alder, 
Myrtle, Madrone, Hemlock and Spruce. The trees grow as 
large as eight and ten feet in diameter of the fir, cedar, myrtle 
and spruce varieties, and it is not uncommon to find a tree 
that will measure 15,000 feet of the two first varieties. The 
other kinds often produce — any of them — 5,000 feet. The 
ground is as thickly studded with these fine trees as it is possi- 
ble for them to grow, some of them when in San Francisco be- 
ing worth from $700 to $1,000. When one takes into consid- 
eration that there are hundreds of these trees on an acre, he can 
begin to reaUze something of the wealth of these two counties; 
but the timber wealth is much less than that of the minerals 
and coal. The center of, and the richest of this great natural 
wealth, is situated m the northern Curry and southern Coos 
counties, and is penetrated by the Coquille river, a beautiful 
stream on which the tide sets four feet high at a distance of 
forty miles from its mouth. Ocean vessels, of twenty feet draft, 
only for a shoal bar could ascend this river thirty, five miles at 
any time, and river steamers for many miles further. This 



OREGON. 35 

river for forty miles is intersected by creeks and sloughs run- 
ning for many miles back into the country, affording an outlet 
"for millions and millions of feet of fine lumber, and could, 
with a little work be made suitable for bringing out coal. At 
forty miles from the mouth of the Coquille, the river forks, 
making the Middle, North and South forks, — large streams 
running far back, draining large portions of Curry, Coos and 
Douglas counties, but being for the most part in Coos. The 
bottom lands on the river, creeks, sloughs and forks are of the 
greatest fertility, being equal to any in point of productiveness. 
They are also very extensive. It is on these that we find the 
valuable hard wood timber. Thus we see the immense wealth 
that is lying dormant; that when developed will bring California 
more than the state in which it is situated. To get at the 
great wealth, it is necessary that the entrance to the Coquille 
river be improved, which is being slowly done by Congress- 
ional appropriations." 

MINING AND MINERALS. 

The southern portion of Coos and the eastern part of Curry 
county embraces a large part of the great mineral belt, from 
which Southwestern Oregon and Northwestern California have 
been drawing immense wealth ever since the first settle^ient of 
Coos and Curry counties. Hundreds of thousands? of dollars 
have been taken from the tributaries of the Coquille, Sixes, 
Elk, Rusty and Lobster, since the first setclement of Coos and 
Curry, in the form of gold dust, a grea.t part of which is coarse. 
Some nuggets weighing from ^ftirty to one hundred and sixty- 
five dollars, and still the iv^sources in that particular are com- 
paratively undeveloped. As yet no large operations have been 
undertaken, and the treasure that has been obtained from the 
placers has been literally scratched from the surface. The 
ledges from which these deposits have washed remain untouched 
with one or two exceptions. The " Dunbar Boulder," a small 
fragment weighing only a few hundred pounds, produced 
$3400 ; and quartz of different varieties taken from the same 



^6 OKEGON. 

range assay from I15 to over $300 per ton in gold and silver. 
Here are mountains of the veritable " Blue Bonanza" rock^ 
from which the celebrated black-sand gold is washed from its 
decomposing surface and carried to the ocean, where it is "pan- 
ned out" by the action of the waves and left in rich stratumlike 
deposits, which have been, and are now being successfully 
mined along and near the beach. Iron ore is found in abund- 
ance, some of which possesses peculiar magnetic properties. 
Copper is common; antimony is plentiful; and strangely enough 
gold predominating! In some localities the path of the 
prospector is actually paved with chrome, which is not only 
valuable as a merchantable article, but for the precious metals 
it contains. In the same range near the coast, in Del Norte 
county, Cal, the same article has for years been shipped to the 
East as an article of commerce, its yield of gold alone paying 
the expense of transportation. In the region drained by the 
middle fork of the Coquille is found large quantities of galena 
ore, which has not yet been disturbed. But by far the most 
useful and extensive of this branch of the resources of the Co- 
quille and its tributaries are the immense deposits of coal. The 
entire region from Rogue river on the south to nearly as far 
north as the Umpqua, covering a tract of land about one hun- 
dred miles in length and from twenty-five to fifty miles in width 
is ©ne vast bed of coal, with the Coquille and Coos bay bars as 
the only available outlet for shipping. It is of splendid quality 
and practically inexhaustible. 

PIbW AND FISHING. 

For several years past the hehing industry has afforded 
remunerative employment for a large number of people. The 
Coquille Packing Company, whose cannery is situated eight 
miles from the mouth of the river, has been established two 
years, and last season gj^ve employment to 112 men. Other 
fisheries employing as many more hands, find sale for their fish 
at the cannery at good prices, or put them up in barrels for the 
San Francisco market. 



OREGON. 37 

Many of the settlers along the river, who are engaged in 
other pursuits, keep nets and seins, and during the fishing 
season reap a bountiful harvest from the water as well as from 
the land. Fish, instead of being a luxury hard to obtam in 
many parts, here has become a staple article of food, as well as 
the source of untold commercial wealth. The-C. P. Co., during 
a short run of only a few days, after getting ready, put up about 
7000 cases of salmon ; and the nightly catch in some of the 
fisheries along the river sometimes runs as high as 3200 from 
six or seven boats, which at the average price of 40 cents per 
fish would make their night's work bring them the neat sum of 
$800 ! Single boats have sometimes brought in as high as 600 
fish in one night, which would net over $190 to the man per 
night, allowing for wear and tear, breakage of nets, etc. 

The river at certain seasons is fairly alive with fish fresh from 
the sea; the water being salty for at least forty miles from its 
mouth, the fish retain all their rich freshness, equal to the best 
Columbia river brands. Countless varieties of fish visit our 
waters every season, each in its own particular turn. Myriads 
of small fish such as herring, smelt, sardines, perch, flounders, 
etc., swarm in from the sea ; and native fresh-water fish, such as 
the different varieties of trout, are abundant and of fine flavor. 
Along the reefs and banks of the coast are found in great abun- 
dance hake, halibut, Pacific cod, and numerous species of 
other valuable salt-water fish. 

Seal and sea-lion hunting has formed a r:. important business 
for several years among the coast people, and valuable cargoes 
of oil and furs have been shipped to market. Occasionally fur 
seal and sea-otter are captured, the fur of the latter bringing 
$40 to $150 each. Crabs and different varieties of shell-fish 
are numerous, and many people from the interior visit the beach 
every season to feast upon the delicious bivalves and other 
healthful delicacies, with which bof/'ntiful nature has liberally 
supplied this section. 

GAME AND FURS. 

Owing to the density of our forests, and the fact that the 



38 OEEGON. 

country is but sparsely settled, wild game roam the country at 
will. The following kinds are to be found in abundance : elk, 
deer, bear, panther, cougar, wildcat, lynx, marten, beaver, fisher, 
coon, mink, otter, Oregon conies, weasel, squirrel, rabbit, and 
the following fowls: Geese, ducks of every known species, 
grouse, pheasants, quail, plover and snipe. While the bear, 
marten, beaver, fisher, mink and otter furnish valuable pelts, 
wild game and fish furnish ample food of the kind for miners 
and prospectors in the fastnesses of the mountains ; and the 
farmer and rancher need never make incursion on their flocks 
or herds for meat, if they choose to have wild meat instead. 

ROADS AND TRAVEL. 

In the matter of roads this county is behind the times, 
which is owing to the fact that navigation has been good and 
roads hard to build through the heavy timber. However, there 
are passable wagon-roads for the most part down the Coquille 
river, forks and creeks. There are also three roads leading to 
the main Roseburg and Coos bay wagon-road from the Coquille 
valley ; one to Coos bay, and one down the coast from Bandon 
to Curry county. Stages run twice a day between Coquille City 
and Coos bay; besides, there is another route accomplished by 
a J"ide across the isthmus on the Isthmus Transit railroad, and 
thence vdown Beaver slough to the river. A daily hack connects 
from Coquf.lle City with the Coos bay and Roseburg road at 
Fairview. There are two steamers running on the river — one 
up and the other dovr.*?.. every day, and their route extends from 
Bandon at the mouth of the Coquille river to within a mile of 
Myrtle Point, a distance of upwards of forty miles, and the fare 
is fifty cents. On Coos bay there are several small steamers 
running to the various points every day of the week except 
Sunday. Freight and transportation is very cheap both on the 
bay and Coquille river. On the bay a good road connects all 
he towns, and a through Ivne reaches the Coquille. 

COQUILLE RIVER AS A SHIPPING PORT. 

The government of the United States recognizing the im- 



OEEGON. 39 

mense natural wealth of the Coquille valley, has been spending 
appropriations yearly improving the river bar by building a 
breakwater on the south side, which has had the effect to change 
the bar from a nest of rocks and an uncertain depth, varying 
from four to eight feet, to a good straight sandy bar with from 
twelve to twenty feet of water. Formerly the channel was 
miserable and crooked, and it was difficult for our bar tug (of 
which we have a good one) to bring a sail vessel in ; whereas 
now, vessels sail in unaided and are never bar-bound, as they 
for months at a time, formerly were. This improvement in our 
shipping facilities is going to revolutionize business, and lucky 
will be the man who is prepared to share in the benefits to ac- 
crue. Whereas we were virtually " bottled up" four years ago, 
as far as our river as a shipping port was concerned, to-day we 
have one of the best ports of entry on the Oregon coast. The 
entrance to the channel at the bar is half a mile north of its 
location five years ago, and nearly where it was many years ago 
when there were eighteen feet of water on the bar. Large sail 
vessels or steamers can now sail from San Francisco, and with- 
out a halt, penetrate this veritable bonanza of wealth forty miles 
up the Coquille river. 

coos BAY ITS SHIPPING. 

The principal ship-building of Oregon is at Coos bay, and 
the importance of shipping at this place is only exceeded in 
this state by that of the Columbia river. A great fleet of vessels 
(both steam and sail) run regularly between the bay and San 
Francisco. So as to accommodate a large class of vessels, the 
government is building a sea wall above the entrance to the bay 
so as to confine the waters to a narrow channel that a greater 
depth may be obtained. When this is completed, it is confi- 
dently believed that Coos bay will be second to no harbor on 
the coast for the class of vessels used in coast trade. The bay 
is fed by South, North, Haynes, Kentuck, "V^^lanch, Pony, 
Catching and Isthmus sloughs, Coos river, Daniels creek and 
many other minor streams. Each of these streams has its log- 



40 OEEGON. 

ging camps, farms or ranches. The loggers find sale for their 
logs at from $5 to $9 per thousand; and the farmers, ranchers 
and gardeners find ready sale at a big figure all they can dispose 
of — in fact most farm and garden products are imported from 
San Francisco. These branches of industry not having kept 
pace with those which have created our home demands. 

MANUFACTURING. 

No portion of the Pacific coast has better facilities for manu- 
facturing than Coos county. The coast range of mountains 
rise abruptly from the ocean, and owing to the generous rain- 
fall, innumerable streams come dashing down the gorges and 
ravines on their way to the sea, making most magnificent water 
powers. As yet, little advantage has been taken of the natural 
provisions, the most of the mills that have been constructed so 
far, using steam power, logs being brought fr©m a great distance 
in rafts or on trucks and skid-roads. The manufacture of lum- 
ber is the only busmess under this head that has assumed any 
importance with one or two exceptions. There are seven flour- 
ins; mills in good condition and nearly all in active operation. 
A sash and door factory is now in process of construction on the 
lower river near Parkersburg, and a large saw mill is being built 
about four miles above the mouth of the river. There are at 
present five saw mills on the Coquille river, most of which are 
approachable by sea-going vessels of draft sufficiently light to 
cross the bar, which have a capacity of from 5,000 to 30,000 
feet per day. When in active operation, the mills and their in- 
dispensible auxiliaries — the logging camps — give employment to 
several fiundred men. The large quantity of wool that has been 
shipped yearly from this and adjoining districts, has induced 
some of our business men to take steps towards, building a 
woolen mill, and it is more than probable that a large business 
of that kind will soon begin active operation. The tannery at 
Centerville, Cwos bay, turns out a remarkably good quality of 
leather, and it is only a question of time when a local boot and 
shoe . factory will be permanently located here. Already our 



OREGON. 41 

harness shops and saddleries are supplanting imported goods of 
that class, with articles not inferior to that manufactured else- 
where. 'Three breweries are in active operation, being partially 
supplied with malt and hops of home production, and in the 
matter of starch, the potato contains a large per cent, of that 
article, the soil being especially adapted for such production. 
There is also a stave mill and a ship yard at Marshfield, giving 
employment to many workmen. The Shipping of coal from 
Coos bay is now a permanent business and will certainly in- 
crease greatly in the near future. 

SCHOOLS AND SOCIETY. 

In framing the laws of Oregon, our legislators seem to have 
never lost sight of school interests, and every available means 
is given in support of public schools. Proceeds from school 
lands, taxes, fines in criminal prosecutions and various other 
sources combine to make ©ur school system second to none in 
the United States, with the exceptions of those of Iowa and 
California, In Coos county, school houses are to be found in 
all sections. The smallest district in the Coquille valley drew 
upwards of $68, being upwards of $4.25 per scholar in the last 
April apportionment. Unlike most newly settled countries, 
this is well advanced in an educational point of view, and in 
this respect exceeds that of many old settled states. Society is 
good and every leading church is fairly represented. Lodges of 
the various orders exist at the larger towns in the county. The 
people are hospitable and obliging. 

NOTES OF INTEREST. 

Singular enough, no ticks, lice, or other annoying insects, 
except fleas, are to be found here. We have no poison snakes, 
scorpions, or things of that sort. Crops are safe from the 
ravages of insects, there being no grasshoppers, chinch bugs, 
army worms, or anything to injure crops of any kind. Nights 
being comparatively cool, a person can sleep under two blank- 
ets through the summer. No devastating storms, cyclones, 



42 OREGON. 

waterspouts, or other disturbances of the elements in the Co- 
quille Valley. The best and most highly priced land here is 
overflowed every three or four years, leaving a deposit of sev- 
eral inches of fine soil. So-called swamp lands are seemingly 
raising, or the water receding, by which many thousands of acres 
of the finest beaver dam lands known, and which a few years 
ago were considered worthless, are being added to the immense 
area of our arable lan^s. Wild bees are plentiful, and scores 
of trees can be found in a day in certain sections. The prin- 
cipal part of the timber here being evergreens, the grass and 
vegetation growing through the whole year, one is impressed 
with the idea of perpetual summer. It never rains here in tor- 
rents, but mild, gentle showers instead. Two and three crops 
of hay is grown here in one season, the first being cut in May. 
Potatoes also grow two crops, and I have heard farmers say 
they could have new potatoes the 3'ear round, that is they could 
dig potatoes out of the ground every month in the year. 
Many kinds of flowers have been blooming all winter, and cat- 
tle live the year round on green grass. 

COQUILLE VALLEY TOWNS. 

BANDON. 

Situated at the mouth of the Coquille River ; has a popula- 
tion of about 100 ; two stores, a postoffice, a drug store, three 
hotels; and is the shipping point for Rosa's saw-mill. This 
place is becoming one of the most desirable sea side resorts on 
the coast, the beach being second to none in point of interest. 
The fishing and hunting are excellent, there being a very great 
variety of fish, and also sea-lion, seals, porpoise and elk, deer, 
bear, panther, etc. Desirable government land lying south-east 
and fine stock ranches are to be had, ten miles back in that 
direction. 

RANDOLPH, 

Six miles up the river from Bandon, has a postoffice, general 
store, hotel, brewery and a saw-mill. Back from the town are 



OREGON. 43 

the famous black sand mines. Land can be bought in this 
vicinity for $8 to $15 per acre, partially cleared. 

PARKERSBURG, 

Three miles above Randolph, has the largest saw-mill on 
the river, a general store, postoffice, and- a cannery. A fine 
lumbering, grazing and farming section lies back of this place. 
Land can be bought at from $8 to $30 per acre, and some fair 
locations are yet to be taken up. 

COQUILLE CITY, 

Twenty-one miles above Parkersburg, has a population ot 
350, and is the largest town on the river. It has a postoffice, 
two hotels, five stores, two livery stables, two drug stores, two 
boot and shoe shops, a weekly newspaper, Coquille City 
Herald^ a saw and grist mill, a brewery and a cabinet shop. 
Mails arrive in this town three times a day from different direc- 
tions, two by stage and the other by steamer, the two former 
going to Coos Bay and Roseburg, and the latter up and down 
the river. Farms fairly improved from $12 to $30 per acre- 
Lands in close proximity to the town $50 to $i©@ an acre- 
Coquille City is at the head of navigation for sea-going vessels 
and is the central place on the river, being easy of access, and 
from where parties can find transportation to any part of the 
valley, Coos Bay or Curry County. 

NORWAY, 

Eight miles above Coquille City, is in the midst of a fine 
farming country, and has a store, . postoffice, grist and saw-mill 
The land about the same as at Coquille City. 

MYRTLE POINT, 

At the head of local steamer navigation, has a population of 
about 200, three stores, one drug store, two hotels, one livery 
stable, grist mill, a daily mail to Roseburg, and steamers every 
day up and down the river. Land can be bought from $7 to 
$25 per acre, and some government lands can be found on the 



44 OREGON. 

river, forks, and creeks above. Myrtle Point is ten miles above 
Coquille City, and has an extremely pretty location. 

COOS BAY TOWNS. 

EMPIRE CITY. 

The county seat of Coos county is situated near the entrance 
to the bay, and is the town lowest down on that body of water 
of any town. It has a population of about 450. The custom 
house for the district of southern Oregon is situated here. The 
town has a beautiful site, and is well supplied with good heal- 
thy water. It is the terminus of the Oregon Southern Im- 
provement Co's. proposed railroad, which is to tap the O. & C. 
road at Rdseburg. This company two years ago built a saw 
mill of 1:^0,000 feet daily capacity, at this place, and have pur- 
chased several hundred thousand dollars worth of property in 
the county, along the route of the aforesaid proposed railroad. 
Being at the port of entry for so rich a district, Empire city 
will always be a good town. It is well supplied with stores, 
sabons, hotels, etc., and has a good school and several secret 
orders. 

NORTH BEND 

Is the next town up the bay. It is a beautiful little village 
and has, in active operation, a ship-yard and a saw mill. It is 
the home of an industrious people, who have a good school, 
and good society. The West Shore, the largest vessel ever 
built on the Pacific coast, was built at this place. 

MARSHFIELD 

Is the next place up the bay. and has a population of 900, 
and is the largest town in the county. It has a ship-yard, saw 
mill and stave mill, and other manufacturing enterprises in 
successful operation. It is in close proximity to the Eastport 
coal bunkers, and also the Aaronville saw mills, and secures 
the benefits of a large commerce to each of these. The town 



OKEGON. 46 

has an excellent school and all the leading secret societies of 
the country, and is also well supplied with stores and saloons. 
Eastport and Newport are situated at the coal mines and con- 
sists of homes of miners. Up on Isthmus slough we find South- 
port, Coos city. Utter city, and Henry ville, coal mine towns. 
I have given a very comprehensive review, of Coos county and 
will close by saying to those who may read these lines, and de- 
cide to come to Coos county, to choose }our own route to San 
Francisco, once there, go to Mr. J. Hawley, at the north cor- 
ner Folsom and Spear streets, and buy your ticket for Empire 
city, on the Ocean Route, which will be about $12 cabin, and 
$6 steerage passage. Or if you have a dread of the sea voy - 
age, when you are at San Francisco, you can come on the 
Oregon and California railroad, as far as Roseburg, then take 
stage 70 miles, to Coquille city. 

CURRY 

County is the extreme southwestern county of the State, and is 
the most isolated county in the State ; it lies directly south of 
Coos. The population of the whole county will not exceed 
1,500. Stock raising is the chief industry j the chief wealth 
of the county is its timber, particularly its large cedar forests 
in the vicinity of Port Orford. The county has not a good 
harbor, and as it is hemmed in on one side by the ocean, and 
on the other three sides by mountains, it will likely be slow of 
development. Though if one can content themselves in such 
an isolated place, they are sure to make a good living, as there 
are thousands of acres lying vacant, only waiting for the sturdy 
settler. There is one kind of timber in Curry county, and also 
plenty of it in Coos county, that is, some day bound to be very 
valuable for furniture manufacturing, and that is the Myrtle 
tree. The beauty of this wood is beyond comparison. It is 
nearly as dark as black walnut, mottled with mahogany col- 
ored streaks, is hard and susceptible of a perfect pohsh, and 
retains its toughness when sawed into the thinest veneering. 
There is no ornamental timber on the globe, except rosewood, 



46 OREGON. 

equal to it. Even the curly and birds-eye maple, so much 
admired, is dingy and cheap looking beside it, and the famous 
red wood is as inferior, as ordinary cedar is to mahogany. If 
this beautiful timber were once introduced in the East or in 
Europe, it certainly would soon be in great demand. It grows 
in immense forests, botji in Coos and Curry counties. The 
principal town of Curry is Ellensburg, little more than a mere 
village. But this can not always last. Here is good health, 
good climate, and good soil, and the advantages of civilization 
will be here at no distant day. 

LAKE 

County is state-like in extent. Its southern border is the Cal- 
ifornia line; its western border is Jackson, Douglas and Lane 
counties; its northern side borders upon Wasco, and its eastern 
side upon Grant. It is about 150 miles square, and is very sparse- 
ly populated. Its chief, and indeed about its only interest, is 
stock raising. Its ranges are wide and fertile, and its isola- 
tion makes the land useless for purposes of general agriculture. 
So little attention is given to farming, that a great share of the 
flour consumed in Lake is imported from the adjoining county 
of Jackson. There are no less than six large lakes in the 
county, with smaller ones in countless numbers. These will 
afford, when they are needed, the irrigation which the level 
lands will require before they can be successfully cultivated. 
Lake County is so isolated that its developments will be long 
delayed. But a day will come when the iron horse finds its 
way across this country now so little known, and when it does, 
immigration will follow. At present I would not advise any of 
my readers to settle in Lake county with the view of farming; 
but to a man with a thousand dollars or more in cash, that 
wishes to engage in the stock raising business exclusively, I 
think he will find in Lake county all he desires to make that 
business a success. That is a county I have never traveled 
over, and consequently I am not prepared to speak authora- 
tively of, any further than what I have already said. 



OREGON. 47 

EASTERN OREGON 

Is that part of the state— -two-thirds of its area — which lies 
east of the Cascade mountains, Lake county excepted. The 
whole area is covered by six counties. Its climate is dry, 
warm in summer and cold in winter; the spring being fully a 
month earlier than that of Western Oregon. In fact, the cli- 
mate is entirely different from that of the Willamette valley. 
We will begin our sketch of Eastern Oregon by a review of 

WASCO 

County, which is the county longest settled. Its area is great 
and in it may be found nearly every variety of land. Within 
the past five years the people of Northern Wasco have been 
trying the somewhat bold experiment of a complete change of 
business. From the earliest settlement of the country until re- 
cently, that region has been devoted almost exclusively to stock 
raising. As the population increased the ranges were occupied 
and it became necessary to sell off the cattle. Very naturally, 
the attention of the people was directed to agriculture, which 
formerly had been carried on only to the extent of supplying 
local consumptive demands. There was serious questions as 
to the capacity of the country for general farming; not with 
reference to richness of the soil, for that was unquestioned; 
but it was feared that the long seasons of dry weather would 
be fatal to general crops. The experiment however, has been 
tried, and the result is highly satisfactory. Crops last year 
were fair, and this year more than fair. Wheat, which was 
quite generally grown, is a splendid crop. The yield is reported 
to average from twenty-two to twenty-six bushels to the acre. 
Many fields, particularly well cultivated, yielded thirty bushels 
or more to the acre, and others where farming methods were 
poor did not produce more than fifteen bushels to the acre, 
but the average was fully up to expectations. It is demon- 
strated beyond a question of doubt, that the country will raise 
grain, and that it will raise other farm products goes with this 
without saying. Now that the people of northern Wasco are 



48 OEEGON. 

beginning farming as a general, rather than an incidental busi- 
ness, we hope to see them go at it in the right way. Before 
they bend all their efforts to wheat growing, we should be glad 
to see them compare the profits to be expected from it with 
those which might reward a more varied farming. We be- 
lieve that careful examination will show them that there is more 
and far surer profit in vegetables and fruit, than in grain. The 
spring season of northern Wasco county is more than a month 
earlier than that of the Willamette valley, and its "truck" could 
always have the first and highest sales in the market of Port- 
land. The country is splendidly adapted for this kind of 
farming, and with it the droughts which must be expected oc- 
casionly, will interfere less than with wheat as an exclusive 
crop. Besides, vegetables and fruit crops do not drain and 
impoverish the soil as does grain growing. Northern Wasco is 
the most favored region of this much favored state for fruit 
production. It lacks some of the minor advantages of South- 
ern Oregon, but this is more than compensated by its situation 
next door to the Portland market. Apples, cherries, peas, 
peaches and small fruits mature very early there, and their 
form and flavor is unsurpassed. Wasco county ought to com- 
mand the Portland market for early products, and we believe 
the day is not far distant when it will do so. The principal 
town of Wasco county is The Dalles, a city of over five thous- 
and population. It has an immense trade with the surround- 
ing country for fifty to seventy miles in every direction. 

CROOK 

County was cut off from the southern part of Wasco in 1883. 
It has now about 9000 population, devoted almost wholly to 
the stock business. It has wide areas, which will in the course 
of time, become valuable for farming, but not till the country 
is opened up by railroad, of which there is no immediate pros- 
pect. The wealth of the county for years to come will be in 
its vast herds of horses, cattle and sheep. 



OREGON. 49 

UMATILLA 

County, the heart of the great upper county, is 80 miles wide 
and 140 miles long; nearly as large as the state of Massachu- 
setts. It contains the following towns : Pendleton, the county 
seat; Heppner, Weston, Centerville, Milton, Echo, Adams, 
Pilot Rock, Foster and Castle Rock. For stock raising, dairy- 
ing or farming it is not excelled. Wheat and barley are the 
principal grain crops, although oats, buckwheat, flax, etc., do 
well. Average yield per acre twe ny to forty bushels, according 
to the amount of rainfall. Water soft. The climate is much 
milder than that of the same lattitude east of the Rocky moun- 
tains. Snow very rarely lays on the ground outside of the 
mountains over four days. The soil is exceedingly fertile and 
easy to cultivate. All kinds of fruits not strictly tropical grow 
plentifully. Garden vegetables unsurpassed. Health remark- 
ably good. The Blue Mountains afford plenty of pine, fir and 
tamarack timber, but this is only true of certain localities ; in 
some places in this country, fuel is quite an object, some cf 
the settlers having to haul their firewood from ten to forty 
miles. Wages are from $1 to $5 a day. Hands on farms get 
from $26 to $35 a month and board, and hands on the stock 
ranches get from $35 to $60 per month. Business apportuni- 
ties good for all branches of trade. Professional opportunities 
are rather scarce. There is some good government land still 
open to settlement. Muscle and capital are needed to make 
developments. Of minerals there are gold, silver and coal in 
the county. Game is abundant, such as elk, deer, antelope, 
ibe, bear, cougar, panther, wolves, geese, ducks, grouse, etc. 
Fish are principally salmon and mountain trout. The people are 
hospitable and are mostly from the far eastern states. A great 
many ambitious young men are doing well here, but I think 
they might all do better still, were they to make a short trip 
back east, and bring out a nice little wife each. They came 
and settled here without money or friends a few years ago and 
now they have both. The principal product, wheat, is worth 
generally from sixty-five to eighly cents a bushel. Horses from 



50 OEEGON. -» 

$30 to $200 each. Cows from $40 to $60. Sheep from $2 
to $3.50 per head. The best time to settle in the county is in 
the early spring or summer. Such a thing as a total failure 
of a grain crop is unheard of. The principal town of Uma- 
tilla county is Pendleton, situated 44 miles from the Columbia 
river on the Umatilla, a rapid mountain stream. On the north 
and east it is bounded by Umatilla reservation, the finest body 
of land in the state, which is only occupied by about 400 
worthless Indians. This tract of land contains 800,000 acres. On 
the south and west Hes the great wheat and stock raising county 
of Umatilla. Pendleton has a flattering future. Its progress is 
second to no town in Oregon, having increased from 700 pop- 
ulation in 1880, to 3,500 in 1886. Its business has increased 
in proportion. Pendleton contains nine general merchandise 
establishments, two furniture stores, three drug stores, four 
hardware stores, five blacksmith shops, and four millinery shops, 
four agricultural implement warehouses, ten doct©rs, sixteen 
lawyers, six contractors, twenty-four saloons, three churches 
and two schools. There are a number of other business houses 
of different sorts. Those who deserve special mention for en- 
terprise, and of which the citizens feel justly proud, are the 
magnificent 500 barrel flouring mills of W. S. Byers & Co., 
turned by water taken out of the Umatilla river, the steam 
pianino; mills of Watson & Co. and the First National Bank of 
Pendleton. A water company has been incorporated with a 
capital of $50,000. A tract of land containing 640 acres has 
been laid out in town lots by the government, and will be sold 
and made an addition to the town. If the reservation is thrown 
open, the population of the town will soon reach 5,000. Brick 
are worth $10 per thousand, building rock free in abundance 
within one-half mile of town. Lumber is worth $20 per thous- 
and feet, rough, and $40 planed. There are two papers 
published in Pendleton, and five in the county. The leading 
journal is .the semi-weekly East Oregonian, which makes in- 
formation about the county a specialty. Real estate agents are 
doing a good business. Land is in great demand and town 



OKEGON. 51 

lots are very high. Pendleton is said to be the most prosper- 
ous town in Oregon, east of the Cascade mountains. Her 
business men are enterprising and successful. Its surround- 
ings compel it to be the leading town and the trading point of 
Umatilla county. Its future is assured. Umatilla, Heppner 
and Centerville are also important towns. About the most 
disagreeable thing one meets with in Umatilla county is the 
hard winds, which, a great many days in the summer season, 
blow terribly. Of course it is nothmg like a severe storm or 
cyclone, but just a hard, steady breeze, sufficient to make a 
horse swerve from his course, when you are riding ; but this is 
no serious drawback, as the people out there don't seem to 
mind it. , 

BAKER COUNTY. 

The resources of Baker County are agriculture, stock raising 
and mining, both quartz and placer. The climate, except in 
the southern portion, is cold in winter and warm in summer. 
Since the land has been broken and cultivated, summer showers 
are getting more frequent, thus insuring a good crop without 
irrigation. The cereals grow to perfection in Powder River 
Valley, also all kinds of vegetables in abundance. There is, 
perhaps, no county in Oregon in which potatoes, onions, cab- 
bage, parsnips, turnips, carrots, beets, strawberries, goose-berries, 
and currants grow in such profusion, or of better quality, than 
in this county. In the Snake and Burnt River Valleys all 
kinds of fruits and corn grow to perfection. Powder River Val- 
ley is 26 miles long, by an average of 16 miles wide. As yet 
but a small portion is settled, or ia cultivation. The sage brush 
land when cleared, is the best soil. Baker City, a thriving 
town of 3, ©00 inhabitants, is the county seat. Heretofore 
everything brought into or taken out of the county was freighted 
in " prairie schooners," but a railroad now runs to the city. 
During the past year the population has increased over 40 per 
cent, and the influence of this increase is manifest in the rapid 
and substantial growth of the city. Carpenters, brick and 



52 OREGON. 

stone masons, and in fact mechanics of all kinds have been 
kept busy, while real estate has advanced more than loo per 
cent. Several large brick buildings have been erected during 
the summer just past, and quite a number are under contract 
for next season. There is no county in Oregon, where an in- 
dustrious man with small capital can do better than in Baker 
County. There is a great deal of vacant land to be had, and 
unimproved agricultural land can be bought for from $6 to 
$io an acre. To a new comer, the climate in winter may 
seem severe, but those who are acclimated do not seem to 
notice the cold. The general health of the county is good, 
and what speaks volumes for the county, the farmers, generally, 
are out of debt, and are prosperous. The mines, instead of 
being worked out, seem to be only partially developed. 
Quartz ledges that have lain idle and scarcely represented, are 
now being worked with success. The great drawback hereto- 
fore in the development of the mineral resources of the county 
has been the want of capital, and the immense cost of mining 
machinery, but now that this county has an opening to the out- 
side world, in the shape of a good railroad, that obstacle will 
be removed, and the millions of dollars now in the rocks will 
be taken out, and a large profit wnll be had to the operator. 

GRANT 

Is another of the state-like counties of Eastern Oregon. It is 
for the most part mountainous, but it contains many good 
agricultural districts. Mining and stock-raising are the chief 
industries. The John Day Valley, for seventy miles, is a long 
and narrow strip of rich agricultural land, producing the 
choicest cereals, at the rate of forty bushels per acre. But it 
must be borne in mind that so narrow is the belt of arable 
land that it is impossible to work any great number of acres 
to advantage. Dairy farming could be made profitable if there 
were anything more than a local market for the products of the 
valley. But as it is wholly off the line of established railroad 
routes, it will be, in all probability, the last county of three 



OREGON. 53 

eastern slope counties to settle up and become wealthy. Hy- 
draulic mining has spoiled a great deal of good land, but even 
that is still worth something for pasturage. Grant county is a 
vast stock ranaje, and has the largest stock ranch in Oregon, — 
Todhunter and Devine's — within its limits. These gentlemen 
average 8,000 calves per year on this ranch, besides 11,000 
more on another ranch, across the line in Nevada State. They 
are also noted as breeders of running stock, at long distances, 
and have bred extensively from the best stock in America. 
Grant County has sent out 80,000 head of beef cattle in the 
past seven years, of which, about one-fifth came to Portland's 
shambles. Silver has been discovered in the Blue Mountains, 
but the presence of arsenic has always rendered the ledges 
unprofitable. The natural springs of Grant County are a 
sufficient guarantee of a healthy section of country. The 
famous soda spring on the north-east corner of the Malheur 
reservation greatly resemble the waters of the famed Apollinaris 
springs of Dresden^ in Germany, and their excellence as a 
diuretic is not to be gainsaid. On the head of John Day 
River are Sulphur springs, to which the miners repair from all 
parts of Idaho, who have be^n unfortunate enough to become 
salivated with mercury while retorting amalgam in the diggings. 
On Indian Creek, twelve miles above Canyon City, is a lime 
spring, which is said to be excellent in curing scrofulous 
diseases. The principal avocation in the western part of Giant 
County is sheep raising, and there are seven men and firms 
who are owners of flocks exreedmg 10,000 head. As the 
summers are excessively hot and wool is more valuable than 
mutton, they breed mostly from the French merino blood. 
None of the wool is manufactured within the county, and all 
goes abroad to be worked up. Grant County was settled 
originally by miners from the three northern counties of Cal- 
ifornia — Siskiyou, Shasta and Trinity — and these people have 
brought with them the traditional hospitality of the Argonautic 
era. The whole population of the county is not over 6,o©o. 
I would say to those intending immigrants, who like the busi. 



54 OEEGON. 

ness of sheep raising, that Grant County is an excellent place 
for that business, although I consider Douglas County just as 
good, and with a far more agreeable climate. We will now 
close our review of Oregon, by briefly sketching 

UNION 

County, which occupies the northeast corner of Oregon, and is 
a very large county. It is mostly hill land but there are many 
small valleys, and one large one, the Wallowa. Union is a 
splendid stock and butter county and it is finely adapted to fruit 
growing. Horse breeding is a great industry in this section. 
The bare and timberless hills are covered with succulent grass, 
called bunch grass, while the pasturage in the pine forests, 
though nutritious in its nature, is so well sheltered that cattle 
keep fat and strong during the severest winters. There are two 
considerable towns in the county. Union and La Grande. 

Kind reader, our sketch of Oregon is now completed. In 
the compilation of this work I have been greatly assisted by 
reliable information from the Weekly Oregonia7i, the leading 
paper of the northwest, though a sjreat part of my work is en- 
tirely original. In my occupatioH of a canvassing agent, I 
have traveled on foot on nearly every public road and highway 
in the following counties in Western Oregon: Multnomah, 
Clackamas, Marion, Linn, Lane, Douglas, Coos, Curry, Ben- 
ton, Polk, Tillamook, Yamhill, Washington, Columbia and 
Wasco. So I have had every opportunity to gain a knowledge 
of the country. My journeyings also extended all over West- 
ern Washington Territory, and we will describe that country 
further on. I have lived in the following states: I was born 
and raised in Ross county, Ohio, and lived in Indiana, Illinois, 
Kentucky, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Arkansas, In- 
dian Ty., Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Cahfornia, Oregon, 
Washington Ty. and British Columbia; and taking all things 
into consideration, I prefer old Webfoot Oregon to any of the 
others I have lived in. I find that that country is not in Am- 
erica that has no drawback. There is bound to be some ob- 



OREGON. 55 

jectional feature. I have made up my mind that Oregon is 
good enough for me. And now, if after reading what I have 
here written of Oregon, and it should be the means of induc- 
ing you to come to this state, let me tell you that if you bring 
no capital, or at least very little, and if it is your desire to get 
hold of vacant government land, then I know of no better 
place than either Tillamook, Clatsop, Coos, Curry, Lane and 
Benton counties. Of course nearly all the other counties 
have some vacant land, but all the best fit for agriculture has 
been taken long ago, while in the counties named above, they 
are as yet very sparsely settled, and especialy is this so of Till- 
amook and Curry counties. There is plenty of room and land 
in the above named six counties to supply 10,000 families with 
a free and happy home. But the first few years you must ex- 
pect to work, and work hard, too. Once you can get ten to 
twenty acres in cultivation then you can take hfe easy, for that 
country I have yet to see where a farmer can make a good liv- 
ing as easy as he can here in Oregon. Back in the eastern 
states a farmer must work hard for eight months in the year to 
be able to live out the other four. In April you are following 
a breaking plow all day, in May and June you plant your corn 
and plow it some the latter part of June, then through July 
comes harvesting and threshing up till about the first of Sept- 
ember, then you cut and shock corn, and in October and 
November you must husk and crib it; then comes a season of 
nearly freezing to death. Oh, my eastern friends I have been 
there and don't want any more of it. I believe I have said all 
that is necessary regarding Oregon; but I will add that if any 
one who has bought this book, and if there is any questions 
you would like further information on about any particular 
county or locality, then write to me stating your questions 
plainly, and I will answer you by letter to the best of my abil- 
ity, providing you inclose a two cent stamp for reply. But I 
will only do this free to those who have bought and paid for 
this book; but I think if you will examine the book closely, 
you will find all your questions answered. 



56 WASHINGTON TEREITORY. 



WASHINGTOH TERRITORY. 



EASTERN WASHINGTON 

Is that part of the territory east of the Cascade Mountains, 
but it should only properly be applied to that section east of 
the Columbia river. This latter district is composed of Walla 
Walla, Columbia, Garfield, Whitman, Spokane, Stevens, Asso- 
tin, Lincoln, Douglas, Adams and Franklin counties. The 
oldest and richest of these counties is Walla Walla. Here 
the first farming settlement was made; here the first wheat was 
raised; here the first railroad was built and here now is the first 
development and the greatest wealth, Walla Walla Valley 
contains about 36 square miles and is watered by the Walla 
Walla river. It is a light rolling prairie of rich ash-alkali soil, 
and is finely adapted by situation and surface features for gen- 
eral farming. It was not timbered originally, but is now dotted 
thickly over with green orchards and groves of waving poplars, 
each dot indicating the location of a thrifty farm. The whole 
valley is thickly settled and the greater part of it is under the 
plow. For twenty years after the first settlement in this region 
it was thought that only the narrow strip which bordered the 
river was fertile, but experiments on the higher land known as 
"benches," demonstrated the fact that they would yield well, 
and now these lands, once thought to be worthless, yield fine 
crops of wheat and are quite as valuable as the lower flat land. 
Walla Walla, Garfield and Columbia counties form a section by 
themselves south of Snake river. Their chief product is wheat, 
and this year they have shipped a surplus of more than 180,000 
tons. The city of Walla Walla is one of the most beautiful in- 
land towns in America. Its streets, which run northeast and 
southwest and transversely, are wide and beautiful avenues. 



WASHINGTON TEERITORY. 57 

Rows of slender and graceful poplars line the sidewalks and 
give a grove like air to the town whose location is on a level 
plain, originally treeless. Business is centered on one main 
street about a mile long on which are located many business 
buildings which would not be discreditable to Portland or even 
San Francisco. The greater number of the business houses, 
however, are cheap wooden affairs. The business of Walla 
Walla' is tremendous. Merchandise sales this year will aggre- 
gate at least $1,500,000, to which, in computing the general 
business of the place, farm machinery sales amounting to fully 
$300,000. There is not in the city a single wholesale house, 
the figures representing a personal and retail business whose 
activity may be imagined. Another important town in Wnlla 
Walla county is Waitsburg, eigthteen miles east of the city of 
Walla Walla and on the line of the Oregon Railway and Navi- 
gation Company's line, is a local center in this district. It is 
on the Touchet river, a small rapid stream not navigable, has a 
population of 1,500, and is the market and point of supply for 
a great region between the Touchet and Snake rivers. Trade 
comes to Waitsburg from twenty miles east, fifteen miles south, 
fifteen miles west and thirty miles north. Not all the trade of 
this wide field is controlled by Waitsbure, but lines of road lead 
out in these directions and the people living along them come 
into the town. Annual merchandise sales amount to over 
$400,000, not including large sales of farm machinery, and 4,- 
500 tons of wheat were shipped this year. The water power 
of the Touchet is fine at Waitsburg, and it is employed to run 
a mill which, besides local grinding, turns out 150 barrels of 
flour per day for export. 

The county seat and principal town of Columbia county is 
Dayton. It is a well built wooden town of about 1,800 popu- 
lation and with a property valuation of $1,500,000. It enjoys 
a large trade and is a commercial point on the O. R. & N. Go's, 
line. This small river district is in the main a heavily rolling 
plateau, whose average elevation above the ocean level is about 
1,200 feet. It is treeless except in occasional spots, and is 



58 WASHINGTON TERLITOKY. 

everywhere covered with rich bunch grass. The soil is a light 
decomposed ash highly tinctured with alkali; yields readily to 
the plow and is highly productive. The climate is dry, warm 
in summer— the thermometer frequently registering plus loo 
degrees and*even higher — and cold in winter, when minus 
twenty degrees and even lower is known. The rainfall varies 
in different localities from twelve to twenty-five inches per year, 
and specially favored valleys escape the extremes of hedt and 
cold. 

WHITMAN 

County lies just north of the Snake river, and is a heavily rolling 
region of great fertility. In it is the famous Palouse country. 
Wheat and flax are produced in great quantities and hauled in 
wagons to the Snake river for shipment. This was the only 
way the people had of getting their grain to market until about 
four years ago, when the country was pierced by a branch rail- 
road from the Northern Pacific road, and its crops since then 
have been carried off by rail. The advent of the railroad has 
given production a great " boom," and has attracted many hun- 
dreds of new settlers. Colfax, the center of this region, is a 
busy town which sells about a million dollars worth of goods 
each year. It has recovered fully from the disastrous fire of 
1882, and is growing rapidly. There is much desirable land 
available for settlement in the Palouse country, and settlers are 
cordially welcomed. 

The region north of Whitman county, and through which the 
Northern Pacific railroad runs, is called the Spokane country. 
The Washington legislature four years ago made a radical 
change in county lines, creating no less than six new local gov- 
ernments, whose boundaries are not yet marked on all the maps. 
The country for the most part is finely adapted for farming, 
and is rapidly filling up. The centers are Sprague, Cheney, 
and Spokane Falls. The former is a railroad town of t6oo 
population. The shops of the Pen d'Oreille division are here, 
and fully half the population is m one way or another in the 



WASHINGTON TEKRITORY. 59 

service of the railroad company. It is attracting many settlers, 
for the country near at hand is productive rolling prairie and 
favorable for general farming. Land is cheaply and easily ob- 
tained from the railroad company, or from the government 
under the homestead and pre-emption laws. 
. Cheney is the center of a large agricultural district ; it has no 
peculiar natural advantages outside of its situation with reference 
to a large farming country, and has not in any way been favored 
by the railroad company ; but it has the very great advantage 
of being accessible to a greater area of farming country than 
either Spokane Falls, its rival on one side, or Sprague, its rival 
on the other. It is located about midway between the south- 
eastern and northwestern extremity of a ridge from five to 
twenty miles wide, about sixty miles long, and whose soil is the 
best character of general farming land. The oldest settlement 
in this country was made in 1880, and of course the farms are 
very new, but they are also very productive, and great crops 
are marketed at Cheney. The population of Cheney is some- 
thing over 2000. 

North of the Spokane country is a section known as the Col- 
ville country. It is large enough for six good-sized counties, 
and is but very sparsely settled. Its thousands of acres of rich 
land to be had for the taking, are wide and inviting. 

The Big Bend country, just east of the Columbia river, is a 
wide and rich region, into which immigration just began to turn 
in 1884, and there is plenty of room there to-day for over a 
a thousand more families ! It must be borne in mind that the 
climate in this part of the territory is entirely different from the 
part called Western Washington. In this, the eastern part, they 
have hot weather in summer, and very cold in winter. Generally 
speaking, all this eastern section is prairie land — but not the 
level prairie land as seen in Nebraska and Kansas. In a gen- 
eral way, it is very rolling. Of course, to people who are accus- 
tomed to living in a cold climate — such as the winters in Mich- 
igan, Minnesota, Dakota, Iowa, and other Northern states — 
the climate here will not seem severe : neither will the heat in 



60 WASHINGTON TERKITOEY. 

summer be any more oppressive than it is in these same north- 
ern states. , 

Walla Walla county has the followinej post offices : Walla 
Walla, Prescott, Dixie, Estes, MuUan, Berry man, Touchet, 
Waitsburg and Wallula. 

Whitman county has the following offices : Almota, Bel- 
mont, Clenton, Coin, Golfax, Colton, Diamond, Elberton, En- 
dicott, Ewartsville, Farmington, Garfield, Guy, Hooper, Lone 
Pine, Ontario, Palouse, Pampa, Penawawa, Pine City, Pullman, 
Rosalia, Steptoe, Sutton, Taxsas, Vulcan and Uniontown. 

Garfield county has : Pomeroy, Alpoawa, Tukannon, Ilia, 
May View, Pataha City, Peola and Vernon. 

Columbia county has: Alto, Covello, Dayton, Huntsville 
Marengo, Perry, Riparia and Starbuck. 

Lincoln county has Brents, Capps, Crab Creek, Crescent, 
Davenport, Davisine, Earl, Egypt, Fairview, Geer, Grand 
Coulee, Harrington, Hesseltine, Kelley, Sassin, Larene, Miles, 
Mordovi, Sedalis and Sherman. 

Stevens county has Che-we-lah, Colville, Harvey, Hunters, 
Marcus, Siwash and Walker's Prairie. 

Asotin, Adams, Franklin, Douglas and Kittitas counties are 
all in the eastern part of the territory, and the soil climate and 
productions and general features and business occupations are 
the same as the rest of the counties we have been describing, 
and they are all new counties organized for the most part in 
1883-4. 

Asotin has the following post offices: Anatone, Asotone, 
Lake, Silcott and Theon. 

Adams county offices are Paha, Ritzville and Washtucna. 

Franklin county has Connell, Kahlotus, Pasco, (Ainsworth.) 

Douglas county has Badger, Moses Coulee, O'Kanogan and 
Voorhees. 

Kittitas county has Cle Elum, McCallura, Milton, Roslyn, 
Teanaway and Wanatchee. 



WASHINGTON TERRITOEY. 61 

MIDDLE WASHINGTON, 

Or what o uubt to be so-called, lies north of the Columbia river 
and consi.^ts of Skamania, Klickitat and Yakima counties. 
This region is not unlike Wasco and Umatilla counties in Ore- 
gon, which lie south and across the Columbia river. Elevated 
table lands, rich valley lands and splendid forests abound. 
The country is populated in an irregular way and affords fine 
opportunities for settlers. 

Klickitat borders on the Columbia river, which affords a 
means of getting to market; and Yakima was opened up in 1885 
by a railroad connecting with the Northern Pacific at the mouth 
of Snake river. The products of these three counties are the 
same as Wasco and Umatilla counties in Oregon, except Ya- 
kima county has immease forests of fir and pine timber, and 
last summer good logging men received four and five dollars a 
day working in the logging camps. The towns and post offices 
of Yakima county are Brown, Cloverdale, Burge, Fort Simcoe, 
Moxie, North Yakima, Prosser, Tampico, Webb, Selah and 
Yakima. There is plenty of vacant land in this county and 
some fine situations for stock raising and dairying. 

'Klickitat county has more prairie land than Yakima or 
Skamania, but all the choice land of this kind is taken up. 
There are a great many Russian Finns in the Klickitat valley; 
they have fine farms and plenty of stock. Land can be bought 
at about $10 an acre, slightly improved. But there is plenty of 
government land in the western part of the county near the 
foothills. Goldendale is the county seat and only important 
town of Klickitat county and has a population of about 1500. 
It has a good trade with the surrounding farmers. MucTi at- 
tention is paid to raising fine horses and cayuses, and a man 
can buy a good pony of this description for from $10 to $20. 
They are only fit for saddle horses or to drive to a light spring 
wagon or buggy. The other towns of Klickitat county are 
Block-house, Centerville, Cleveland, Columbus, Crimea, Dot, 
Fulda, Wildcat, Luna, Lyle and White Salmon. 



62 WASHINGTON TEEEITOKY. 

Skamania county lies along the Columbia river and is a very 
rough and mountainous county generally speaking, though 
there are some narrow valleys where the soil is very rich. This 
county is very sparsely settled and there is plenty of room for 
hundreds of families. The main industries of the county are 
logging, stock raising and dairying. The post offices of Ska- 
mania county are Cascades, Cape Horn, Chenowith and Skye. 
Climate warm in summer and cold in winter. 

WESTERN WASHINGTON 

Occupies an area of about thirty thousand square miles. More 
than half of it is mountainous, and almost the whole of it is hea- 
vily timbered; certainly not more than one-twelfth of it is prairie 
land. Puget Sound, famed as the finest inland body of water 
in the world, reaches from the northern end of Western Wash- 
ington through the middle halfway to the Oregon line. Briefly, 
Puget Sound is an arm of the ocean a hundred miles inland, 
and extending north and south parallel with the coast for 150 
miles. It varies in width from five to fifteen miles, and intersects 
its shores with hundreds of bays and little ports. A long, broad 
strait, running east and west, connects its northern entrance 
with the ocean, and its salt waters ri§e and fall with the ocean 
tides. Everywhere it is deep, and magnificent evergreen forests 
crowd its shores and almost into its waters on every side. Hun 
dreds of wooded islands afford a panorama of the picturesque, 
and rugged snow mountains in constant view give a touch of 
grandeur and complete a beautiful picture. But beauty is inci- 
dental, and goes for but little by itself. Of greater importance 
is it that ships can float on Puget Sound, that fishes swim its 
waters ; that the bays and ports afford good anchorage ; that 
the timber is the finest in the world for spars and ships and houses 
— that its climate is mild and healthful, that the lands which lie 
near its shores are fruitful, that the mountains yield iron and 
coal, that natural conditions for the living and happiness of a 
million people are here. 



WASHINGTON TERRITOKY. 63 

The great industries of Puget Sound are timber and coal pro- 
duction. Nine large merchant mills are located along its shores 
and their daily lumber cut is nearly a million feet. These 
mills in almost every instance are owned by San Francisco 
capitalists, and their product is carried by sailing vessels to the 
San Francisco market and to foreign countries. South America 
is the largest foreign purchaser, and Australia is the next. Coal 
from the mines, all owned by non-residents, is carried by large 
iron steam colliers to San Francisco and to Portland. 
The monthly output of coal from these mines is almost 30,000 
tons, and it could easily be increased to several times that 
amount. 

The other industries of Puget Sound are local, but not small 
because local. The timber business is the great characteristic 
industry of Western Washington ; it directly affects all other 
branches of business, and for labor and supplies disburses many 
millions of dollars each year. 

The first city of Puget Sound is Seattle, but not- far behind 
it in point of population and activity, and not a whit behind it 
in ambition is Tacoma. The city of Tacoma has independent 
resources, however, and is running a heavy tilt with Seattle for 
the chief business and commerce of the Sound, now^ held by the 
city of Seattle. It is advancing in population and in every ma- 
terial way at an amazing pace. 

Port Townsend is a growing city at entrance of the Sound, 
and is not without hope for future greatness. Olympia at the 
extreme southern point of the Sound, is the territorial capital, 
and is content with its character as a political and social head- 
quarters and its prosperity as a thriving local center. 

Whatcom and La Conner in the extreme northern counties 
are important towns. The character of the country in the 
various Puget Sound counties is almost identical. Everywhere 
the country is forest covered to the margin of the water, except- 
ing along the hundreds of streams which put into the Sound, 
and on the tide flats. The bottom and tide lands are wonder- 



64 WASHINGTON TEREITOKY. 

fully productive, and will produce enough in the agricultural 
line to feed a great population. 

Hops are a profitable crop, particularly in the valley of the 
Puyallup ; and ail fruits and vegetables of the temperate zone 
grow in great excellence. The country is not a farming region 
in the ordinry sense, but its rural population could be many 
times multiplied without exhausting the supply of good produc- 
tive land. In Whatcom county there is a considerable section 
of good farming land, and on it there is considerable production 
of grain, which goes to California. 

The coast section of Western Washington is rich in resources. 
The valleys of the Black and Chehaiis rivers westward towards 
the coast from Olympia, contain much good grain' and general 
farming land, and there is talk of tapping them with a railroad. 
The bays of Shoalwater and Gray's Harbor are intersected with 
small rich valleys, all highy fertile. And all through the tim- 
bered district between Puget Sound and the Columbia river 
there are open spaces in which prosperous settlements may be 
found. 

Cowlitz aud Clarke counties on the Columbia river have much 
good rich land ; and bemg near Portland by water transportation 
find their market near home. In both counties there are con- 
siderable areas adapted for grain growing and general farming. 
The river counties further w^est are chiefly viiluable for their 
timber and fishing interests. Vancouver, in Clarke county, is the 
U. S. land office for this district. 

Clarke' coun ty is one of the oldest settled counties of the ter- 
ritory, and yet there is considerable vacant land in the county, 
but it Hes back from the Columbia river, twenty to thirty miles. 
Improved farms can be bought cheap — say from $io to $20 per 
acre. Lewis river, emptying into the Columbia, is a fine little 
stream, navigable as far up as La Center, some twenty miles 
from its mouth. A great many farmers of Clarke county are 
putting out prune orchards, as that is really one of the safest as 
well as the most profitable investments a farmer can make 
this country. Vancouver is a very handsome little city, while 



WASHINGTON TEERITOEY. 65 

the United States barracks located here, is the pride of the 
county. The population of Clarke county is now about ii,ooo 
and steadily increasing. 

COWLITZ 

County lies directly west of Clarke county and its southern 
boundary is the Columbia river. Cowhtz county has one nav- 
igable river, the Cowlitz, which is navigable for small steamers 
for forty miles from its mouth. Kalama is the county seat, sit- 
uated on the Columbia river. The Cowlitz County Advo- 
cate, the only paper in the county, is published here. Kalama 
once had glowing prospects of becoming a great city, but its 
luster is now dimmed, and although it may some day become a 
considerable town, yet it will never equal Seattle, as its location 
is not suitable nor attractive, situated as it is on the side of a 
a steep hill. Freeport, a small town situated on the bank of 
the Cowlitz river some ten miles from its mouth, is finely loca- 
cated and surrounded by a rich farming section and has every 
prospect of becoming a prosperous town in the near future. To- 
ledo, a larger town than Freeport, is situated on the same river 
some twenty miles above Freeport, and it is also the last town 
up the river in this county. After going ten or fifteen miles 
still up the river from Toledo, you come to the unsettled part 
of the county, except an occasional settler will be found who 
has immured'himself in this dense forest country and is endeav- 
oring to make a home for himself and family; but it will take 
years of toil and hardships to do it, for this part of the country 
is heavily timbered. The logging business forms the chief in- 
dustry of the county, though there are many fine farms, chiefly 
located along the Cowlitz river. There are thousands of acres 
of vacant lands in this county awaiting the sturdy settler. The 
post offices of this county are as follows: .Kalama, Freeport, 
Castle Rock, Carrollton, Jackson, Kelso, Mt. Coffin, Oak 
Point, Olequa, Sightly, Silver Lake, Stella, Toutle, Tower, 
Tucker and Woodland. 

WAHKIAKUM 

County lies west^of Cowlitz and also fronts on the Columbia 



66 



WASHINGTON TEELITOEY. 



river. The main industry is logging, and in fact, it is about 
the only .mportant branch of business carried on in the county, 

Jl be, as almost the entire county is one vast forest of heavy 

lamet, (county seat). Deep R:ver, Gray's River, Stark's Point, 
Skamokawa and Waterford. Nearly half of the land in Wah- 
kiakum county is still vacant, but don't go to th,s county with 
the mtention of farming, as there are many n-.ore places far 
more desireable. ' 



PACIFIC 



County lies west of Wahkiakum, and is fhe extreme south- 
western coutuy of the territory. It ,s also a far better county 
than Wahktakum in all respects, save the timber industry, and 
IS almost equal in th.nt r::nect. This county contains 
the tanned sheet of water called ahoalwater Bay, famed for its 
oyster beds. Oysterville, the county seat, and a town of about 
250 inhabitants, is situated on the south side of the bay, and 
the mhab.tants of the town are nearly all engaged in the oyster 
business, as are also the people of Bay Center, another small 
town further up the bay. Ilwaco is the famed seaport town 
and as a bathing resort it has no superior on the Pacific coast 
north of Cahfornia. The beach is just one mile from the 
town, and it is a smooth, level beach fifteen miles in length 
A large and fine hotel and numerous cottages are built in a few 
rods of the beach, but all of them are unoccupied only during 
the bathing season. The Willapa river, a fine little river, emp" 
les into Shoalwater Bay and is navigable for about thirty miles 
from Its mouth. Willapa city, generally called Woodard's land- 
ing, IS the fartherest town up the river. South Bend is the firs- 
town up the river from its mouth, and from South Bend on up 
the river, the country is settled on both sides as far as fifteen 
miles above Willapa City. Some of these old setttlers came 
here thirty-five years ago, and most of these old settlers are 
pretty well fixed. There are thousands of acres of vacant land 



WASHINGTON TEEEITORY. 67 

in this county, some on the Willapa river up near the foot of 
the mountains. I crossed these mountains four years ago by 
following the blazes on the trees. It was a long, lonesome 
journey to make on foot, with a distance of fifty miles between 
the two nearest houses. I had to camp out all night on top of the 
mountain with some fir branches for my bed; but the worst 
part of it was, I had nothing to eat from the morning I started 
until noon of the following day; and I saw fine timber enough 
during this fifty mile walk to supply the state of Kansas in fuel 
and building lumber for the next fifty years, if it could be so 
applied. I saw several deer and hundreds of pheasants and 
grouse. I stopped at South Bend awhile, and while there I 
wrote two short articles descriptive of Pacific county, which 
were published in the Toledo Blade. I wrote over the 7ioni 
de plume of Clayton V. Wilder. I received many letters of 
inquiry from people ail over the United States, and it was part- 
ly on that account that I concluded to write and publish this 
book. About ten miles north of the Willapa river is a section 
of country called Smith River Valley. This is a fine valley 
and capable of furnishing homes for over a hundred families. 
There are as yet only a few families located here. Of course 
the valley is not prairie land. It is all covered with timber, 
but a large portion of it is small and easily cleared off; such as 
vine maple, alder and thimble berry brush. There is a great 
deal of logging done in this county, and most all the logs are 
sawed up into lumber at the large mill owned by Simpson 
Bros, at South Bend. On each side of the river are numerous 
sloughs, some of them extending a mile or two back from the 
river, and it is an easy matter to roll the logs into these sloughs, 
and then when a raft of logs is completed they are floated out 
on the outgoing tide into the river, and from there they are 
towed by a small steamer to South Bend. Nearly all the farm- 
ers along the river follow logging in winter and during their 
spare time in summer. Thus they sell their logs at a good 
price and are gradually getting their land cleared off at the 
same time. The tide grass along these sloughs keeps green al- 



68 WASHINGTON TERRITOEY. 

most the year round, as along several of these sloughs the tiiP- 
ber is very sparse, thus allowing the grass to grow abundantly, 
and stock keep in good order the year round. The post offi- 
ces of Pacific county are Oysterville, Bay Center, Ilwaco, Wil- 
lapa City, South Bend, Long Beach, Nasel, North Cove and 
Sunshine. Population of the county about 4000. The way to 
get to the Bay is to go from Portland, Oregon, to Astoria by 
steamboat, there cross the Columbia river to Ilwaco, thence by 
stage to Oysterville, which is a twenty mile drive right on the 
ocean beach, and from Oysterville you go up the Willapa river 
by steamer, or go across the bay to North Cove, and from there 
it is ten miles to Smith River Valley. 

CHEHALIS 

County hes due north of Pacific county, and like the latter 
county, it also contains a fine body of water called Gray's Har- 
bor. The Chehalis river, emptying into this harbor, is navigable 
for small steamboats as far up as the town of Montesano, 
which is situated about thirty miles from mouth of the river. 
Gray's Harbor is unquestionably the greatest, and in all respects 
and especially in a commercial sense, the most desirable and 
the most liberally endowed with practical features, of any of 
the other estuaries of, or inlets from the sea on this coast from 
San Francisco to the Straits of Fuca, not even excepting the 
Columbia river. Its commercial capacity is of a very extensive 
and remarkable character ; and while it has long been handi- 
capped by contemporaneous and jealous competing points, its 
deservmg qualities are now becoming established and widely 
known ; and they are attracting capital and enterprise at a rate 
which must in a very few years make this magnificent body of 
water the scene and center of surpassing business activity and 
coUossal commercial enterprises. In support of these assertions 
and of what he may say further on, the writer deems it but 
justice to his readers and to the subject to introduce at this 
juncture some official testimony, thus presenting an array of 
authoritative facts which cannot be successfully controverted ; 



WASHINGTON TEKRITOKY. Q9 

and we therefore incorporate here an extract from the official 
report of Mr. Robert A. Habersham, who, under the supervision 
of Capt Charles F. Powell, chief of the United States engineers, 
made a survey of the lower harbor and its bar in the summer of 
1 88 1. Mr. Habersham says : 
'• To the Chief of Engineers, U. S. A.: 

''U. S. Engineering Office, ) 

"Portland, Or., Nov. 2, 1881. j 

" Sir : I have the honor to submit the following report with 
chart of the entrance to Gray's Harbor, Washington Territory, 
surveyed by me under the direction of Maj. G. L. Gillespie, 
corps of engineers, in July last. 

" The entrance to the harbor lies in latitude 46 degrees and 
55 seconds N., and longitude 124 degrees and 8 seconds West 
from Greenwich. Three and one-half miles southwest, mag- 
netic bearing, from the entrance is the bar, which is 7000 feet 
wide, traversed by three channels — respectively, 18, 17 and 19 
feet deep at low tide — separated by shoaler spots on which was 
found from ii to 15 feet at low tide. On these the sea breaks 
frequently when the waves are from six to eight feet high, leav- 
ing the deep channels between them clearly marked by absence 
of breakers. The average distance across the bar between the 
curves of 18 feet is 1500 feet, and the navigable depth 18 feet 
at the average of lowest of low tides. 

" I am informed by residents of the vicinity that it is only 
during very heavy weather that the sea breaks clear across the 
bar. A current of two miles per hour flows over the bar south- 
ward during flood, and northward during ebb tide. Inside of 
the bar the channel, flanked on both sides by the constant surf 
on the north and south spits, decreases in width to 2300 feet at 
the entrance between Points Brown and Hanson to the harbor ; 
here it is 100 feet deep. 

" By comparing the present chart with that of the United 
States Coast Survey of 1862, it will be seen that within the last 
nineteen years the channel through the bars has moved two 
miles, and the entrance to the harbor 1,000 feet southward ; that 
the ruling depth of the bar has increased by from two to three 
feet, and that the course across the bar and into the harbor is 
now nearly straight. 

"As the average tidal range is six feet, and during spring 
tides nine feet, vessels drawing from eighteen to twenty feet can 
reach the anchorage without a tug at the proper stage of tide, 



70 WASHINGTON TEREITOEY. 

except when the wind blows from the eastward. Pilots familiar 
with this bar all agree in pronouncing it safe and easy of passage. 
One buoy will suffice to mark the channel. 

" The harbor covers an area of seventy square miles. The 
channels of the Chehalis, Humptulips, and John's rivers, the 
principal tributary streams, unite inside the entrance and form 
an anchorage sheltered by Points Brown and Hanson, with 
4500 acres of area from thirty to fifty feet deep at low tide with 
excellent holding-ground. 

" Gray's Harbor is the only natural outlet of a tract of coun- 
try containing 2600 square miles, rich in timber, mineral, agri- 
cultural and grazing lands. Of this tract 2,000 square miles lie 
in the valleys of the Chehalis and its tributaries, which will be 
found particularly described in my report of an examination of 
that river and the adjacent territory, made in last August. 

" The country immediately around the harbor is covered with 
timber generally too small for profitable manufacture into lum- 
ber, but furnishing shelter through the year to large herds of 
cattle, which fatten on the tender undergrowth and grasses, 
requiring to be fed only during severe cold weather, which, as is 
well known, occurs but rarely on this coast. 

" Beginning half a mile from the ^hore, the heavy timber- 
consisting of fir, spruce, cedar, hemlock and maple, with alders 
and Cottonwood on the streams — covers the country to the snow 
line of the mountain range which lies between the coast and 
Puget Sound, interspersed by fertile prairies and cranberry 
marshes, more especially in the valley of the Humptulips. 

" Robert A. Habersham, 

"Assistant Engineer. 
" Capt. Charles F. Powell, 

"Corps of Engineers, U. S. A." 

THE CENTRAL CHEHALIS VALLEY REGION. 

The vast central basin known as the ChehaUs Valley, which 
is rapidly acquiring an extended and well deserved reputation 
for great fertility, magnificent and practical resources and for 
the favorable basis which it offers for the building up of homes 
and fortunes, lies directly west of the southern extremity of 
Puget Sound, about midway between the straits of Fuca and 
the Columbia river, and extends from within a few miles of the 
waters of the sound to the open Pacific ocean at Gray's Har- 
bor. The valley is of a very considerable extent, having an 



WASHINGTON TERRITORY. 71 

area of nearly 3000 square miles, and its two great central fea- 
tures are Gray's Harbor, its natural outlet, and the Chehalis 
river, a powerful and navigable scream tributary to that hne 
body^'of water. Tributary to them, and flowing both from the 
north and south, are numerous smaller streams, some of them 
of considerable size, and furnishing when combined, nearly 
2000 miles of practical water way, all of which is available for 
lumbering purposes, and much of which is navigable. The 
valleys of these streams, and of the Chehalis as well, are all 
very fertile, not subject to disastrous freshets, and this latter 
fact is a feature due to natural causes, which give the low lands 
of this county an immense advantage over almost any other 
lands of similar character in the entire coast and sound region. 
The streams of this region do not rise far up in the mountains, 
and their course is more extended and accompanied with less 
fall than is the place elsewhere m the territory, and therefore, 
the overflows are never formidable, dangerous or destructive, 
and they always occur in the winter and never in the summer 
season, so that the valleys are rather enriched and benefitted 
than damaged by their recurrence. These valleys, in the ag- 
gregate, comprise an extensive and inviting region which for a 
large amount of really valuable arable land, an immense array 
of multiplied resources, and a combination of leading and 
easily developed wealth producing elements, probably stands 
without a parallel upon the western coast. The greater por- 
tion of them still in a state of nature, is covered with an un- 
usually light growth of alder, salmon brush and vine maple 
easily cleared, and there are also many small prairies inter- 
spersed with this timber, these having as a rule, a rich soil, es- 
pecially in the central and lower Chehalis country. All these 
lands produce the finest grasses, grains, vegetables and fruits, 
and have been found especially adapted to the dairy interests, 
which up to the present time, has been a leading industry in 
the valley. The uplands of this region, unlike those of most 
other portions of the territory, are not gravelly and sterile, but 
possess a fine clay loam soil, capable of being converted, when 



V2 WASHINGTON TERRITOEY. 

cleared, into excellent grazing and agricultural land. They are 
now covered with a magnificent growth of heavy timber, con- 
sisting of red, white and yellow fir, cedar, hemlock, etc., and 
this is pronounced by men of extensive experience, to be the 
finest and best adapted to lumbering purposes of any body of 
timber as yet known on this coast, a fact which, taken in con- 
nection with the excellent advantages for handling it offered 
by the numerous fine logging streams of this region, justifies 
the conclusion, that this valley is destined to shortly become 
one of the great lumbering centers of the Pacific northwest^ 
and a lumbering region is always a moneyed center. 

THE WYNOOCHIE 

Valley which joins the Chehalis at Montesano, is one of the 
most remarkable and beautiful in all Western Washington. It 
is some eighty miles in length, extending from the foot-hills 
of the Olympic range, in a southerly direction to its junction 
with the Chehalis, and averaging in width as to its bottom lands 
from one-fourth of a mile to a mile, while back from there for 
miles extends a vast and solid body of timber, consisting of fir, 
spruce and cedar, which for general lumbering purposes and 
merchantable qualities cannot be surpassed in any country, and 
all of which can be easily driven down the Wynoochie, one of 
the finest logging streams on the coast, which courses through 
it. This stream may well be called " beautiful." Clear, clean, 
swift, pure, sparkling and cool — a true child of the mountains, 
yet never washing its banks or getting out of them to any appre- 
ciable or damaging extent, it is the central figure of a region of 
most inviting and practical prospects. The soil along its shores 
is a deep sandy loam of unusual fertility and marked lasting 
qualities ; and as the growth in the bottoms is very light and 
easily disposed of, and a good road leads down the valley to 
Montesano, home-seekers are naturally drawn to it, and are 
hardly ever dissatisfied with the inducements to settlement 
which it presents, 

A considerable number of settlers have located here, and 



WASHINGTON TERRITORY. 73 

some few have been here a great many years, and there is 
abundant room for many more when the large tracts now held 
by individuals are divided up according as they should be. 
Much of the upper valley is still unsurveyed, but this does not 
deter people from settling therein ; and at the present rate of 
advancement, it will not be many years before this fine tract of 
country will be wholly occupied by a happy and prosperous 
people. 

The Satsop valley is not so liberally endowed with desirable 
qualities as is the Wynoochie, though it embraces a fine body 
of land, and will afford homes for a large number of families 
when its many merits become generally known. The stream 
flows down from the mountains, parallel with, and but a few 
miles east of the Wynoochie, and in many respects it closely 
resembles the latter stream, but it has much less of either good 
land or good timber tributary to it. 

The upper North River country, which is tributary to that 
portion of the Chehalis valley now under discussion, is pos- 
sessed of many admirable characteristics ; but its remoteness, 
it being from six to eight miles from the Chehalis river, and the 
fact that no adequate roads have as yet been built mto it, has 
prevented its development. It is a fine body of land, still for 
the most part unappropriated, and it undoubtedly offers excel- 
lent inducements to a colony of energetic men locating in it in 
sufficient numbers — and in concert to carry with them and 
possess within themselves the elements of society, schools and 
other accompaniments of civilization ; and we confidently look 
for its development upon this plan in the near future. 

Having now briefly discussed the leading and tributary fea- 
tures of what we term the Central Chehalis valley, it is now in 
order to point out its most natural and available trade center, a 
feature which is essential to the success of any region. In this 
connection it is only necessary to mention one point, as there 
is and can be no other, and that is 

MONTESANO. 

This thriving little city is situated on a beautiful rolling prairie 



74 WASHINGTON TEEEITORY. 

a short distance from the Chehalis river ; and while it has had 
a nominal existence for many years, it is as regards actual devel- 
opment, really the creature of a day. Five years ago it was a 
mere sleepy hamlet, consisting of perhaps fifty people and a 
dozen buildings ; to-day it is an incoprorated town of nearly a 
thousand people, with numerous good business establishments, 
though there is still room and a good field for more — good 
schools and churches, an academy, excellent hotels and livery 
stables, a live newspaper called the '' Chehalis Valley Vidette," 
and many other branches of business — and is surrounded with 
tributary resources and advanta2;es, which open up before it 
most flattering prospects, and which indicate positively that it 
must become an important commercial center. It is located 
at the head of tidewater navigation on the Chehalis, and even 
in the present condition of that stream, vessels drawing twelve 
feet of water can come to its wharves, while a little improve- 
ment of the channel below will enable any craft to reach it that 
can safely cross the Gray's Harbor bar. It is the natural and 
unavoidable center of the notable valleys descibed above, and 
all their products, increasing as they will from year to year, are 
destined to be handled in its markets. It is centrally located 
in, and the county seat of Chehalis county — one of the finest 
districts on this coast, within the Hmits of which, all more or 
less tributary to it, are located great natural advantages, and 
more numerous, and more important elements of wealth than 
are to be found in any other portion of Western Washington. 
It is the terminus of all stage lines from the east, and all water 
routes from the west, and is thus made the distributing point 
for all travel, and all commodities reaching this region by either 
of these methods of communication. It is the only point below 
Elma, some fifteen miles above it, that can be reached by wagon 
roads, and good highways lead to it down the Satsop, Chehalis 
and Wynoochie valleys. 

This is a point of much greater importance than the casual 
observer would be led to suppose, especially in this country 
where the building of roads is a matter of considerable dififtculty. 



WASHINGTON TERRITORY. 75 

One of the principal and most effective factors in the building 
of Rome, oiu of the greatest cities of the ancient world, was 
the fact so noted that it passed into the saying : 

"Ail roads lead to Rome !" 
So in this valley all roads lead to Montesano ! And let those 
belittle the fact who will, it is nevertheless a condition of things 
which cannot but have a very favorable influence upon the 
growth of that flourishing young city 1 In conclusion, it may 
well be said that this portion of the ChehaUs valley is a good 
place in which to locate for any and all classes of immigrants. 
It is no longer a pioneer outpost. It has passed through the 
period when privations and hardships were to be expected and 
endured ; and though the time of waiting for it has been long 
and weary, light has at length broke through the darkness, ^nd 
the well-advanced morning of a glorious day, for this country, 
is at hand ! 

The home-seekers of the great restless Eastern world, push- 
ing forward in an adventurous spirit, or for the bettering of their 
fortunes, have heard of this goodly land and are determined to 
possess it ! Capital — convinced of the great richness and mighty 
scope of our uiequaled, though as yet undeveloped, resources 
— has already planted its advance guard in our midst, and soon 
its solid columns will wheel into line, and cross swords with 
Nature in contention for the great prize which she has so long 
in peaceful possession, guarded so carefully ; and this mighty 
power, combined with its climate and sanitary advantages, and 
the eager inclinations of the thousands who are pressing forward 
to establish homes in this valley, cannot fail to make settlement 
in it very profitable, and, in the near future, ver\' pleasant. 

UPPER CHEHALIS REGIOX AND ITS RESOURCES. 

We have heretofore discussed at some length the various 
characteristics of the lower and central Chehalis valley region, 
and we now turn our attention to that vast fertile and liberally 
endowed tract of country extending from the Satsop river to the 
headwaters of the Chehalis river, and known as the upper 



76 WALHINGTON TERRITOEY. l 

valley. This section embraces a tract of country sixty miles- 
long, and from twenty to twenty-five miles wide, and contains 
a numerous array of resources most remarkable in character 
and most advantageous to the immigrant in search of a home 
and a comfortable abiding place. This portion of the Chehalis 
river itself is worthy of more than a mere passing notice. It; 
is a noble and an able stream rising on the northeastern slope 
of the mountain range, which separates the western extremity 
of the Columbia valley from the Puget sound basin, and em- 
bodying in its course to the ocean at Gray's Harbor, more val- 
uable and practical features and characteristics than any other 
stream in Western Washington. According to authority taken 
from official surveys, the stream is navigable to Claquato, sev- 
enty miles above its mouth, for vessels drawing three feet of 
water for seven to eight months in the year, and as the only 
present obstructions to navigation are two drifts, which can be 
removed at an expense of not over ten thousand dollars, it will 
be conceded, that in view of the rapid improvement of the| 
whole valley, these obstructions must shortly be disposed of, ' 
which being done, all the tributary region will be furnished with 
a natural and sufficient outlet to the markets of the world, and 
this latter is all that is necessary to render it one of the most 
desirable points of settlement in the whole northwest. The 
upper river drains an area of about 1200 square miles, from 
one-third to one-half of which is good agricultural land, sus- 
ceptible of easy cultivation and being very fertile, the latter 
fact being .especially true of the bottom or valley lands proper, 
which are from one to two miles wide, and covered, in a state 
of nature, with a very light growth of timber. The basin of 
the stream is entirely below the snow line, and its waters are sup- 
plied by the gentle rainfall upon the mountains in winter, when] 
the dense vegetation makes its progress to the river so devious 
and slow, that violent floods are matters almost impossible,; 
During the winter season when the highest water prevails, the 
usual rise above low water is from six to ten feet, and only one 
case is known where it has reached fifteen feet. The current 



WASHINGTON TERRITORY. 77 

•of the river has a rate of speed of from one to three miles an 
hour, and its banks are from five to ten feet high at low water 
with but little tendency to wash and cave off. This portion of 
the Chehalis has numerous tributaries of greater or less extent, 
and all adapted to lumbering and agriculture, and presenting 
many desirable locations for settlement. Among^ the most im- 
portant of these are Delazene creek, Barker's creek, Gaddis 
creek, Workman creek, Lincoln creek, Mock Chehalis, Porters 
creek, Williams creek, Cedar creek, Black river, Skookum 
Chuck river and the Newaukum river. All these drain desira- 
ble tracts of country, and there is upon each of them more or 
less good land still vacant and capable of being converted into 
good homes at a reasonable expenditure of time and labor. 
This section of the Chehalis river is without doubt the agri- 
cultural district, par excellence, of this portion of the Pacific 
Coast. To an extensive body of good land, it adds a climate 
and soil, capable to a surprising degree of sustaining diversi- 
fied agriculture. While in the lower valley only grasses and 
root crops flourish to perfection, here in the dryer climate, all 
grains and cereals, as well as roots, grasses and fruits grow with 
most astonishing prolificness. The yield of the soil is very 
bountiful and crops are rarely if ever, injured by droughts or 
pests of any description. From forty-five to seventy bushels 
of wheat, eighty to one hundred bushels of oats and from three 
to five hundred bushels of potatoes to the acre is not an unus- 
ual yield, while the meadow lands produce .immense crops of 
hay of the most desirable quality. The timber interests of this 
vast region are truly stupendous, and must, in a few years, as 
soon as the forests convenient to tidewater have been consumed, 
contribute largely to the financial and general business benefit 
of this upper region, as they will be the basis of numerous 
lumbering enterprises, to which the producing interests of the 
district will be naturally and profitably tributary. The portion 
of country now under discussion, is much better settled and 
improved in an agricultural sense, than any other part of the 
great valley of which it is a part, and owing to its many ad- 



78 WASHINGTOIsr TEEEITOEY. 

vantages in the waj^ of soil, climate and the many open or 
prairie districts which are scattered throughout it, it would now 
be even with, if not in advance of any similar region in West- 
ern Washington, were it not for the fact that up to the present 
date, its facilities for transportation have been of the poorest 
possible description, the sound markets being remote and diffi- 
cult of access, and the only other method of transporting goods 
either into or out of the valley, being to navigate the Chehalis 
river by either skiff or scow, both precarious and unprofitable, 
and the scow especially objectionable because the scow once 
sent down the river could not be brought back, there being no 
steamers to take it in tow. Now, however, a prospect for the 
better is fast appearing, and it is an established fact, that good 
transportation facilities for the upper valley will be secured in 
the very near future. Several practical parties have now under 
contemplation, the putting on the river of small steamers sufi- 
cient for the trade, and thus an excellent outlet and market 
will be opened up for this heretofore isolated region. For a 
distance of twenty miles up the valley from the mouth of the 
Satsop river, its trade naturally centers at Elma, which is situ- 
ated upon a beautiful, clean, gravelly prairie about one mile 
from the Chehalis river and fifteen miles east of Montesano. 
It is a bright and prosperous village of 300 inhabitants, with 
good society, schools, churches and business facilities sufficient 
and rapidly increasing, and general surroundings very favora- 
ble to growth and development. Much building has been 
done in the town during the past year, and there is an excellent 
prospect that there will be a very liberal expenditure of means 
upon both commercial and residence property there during the 
coming year and in the future generally. All travel to the 
lower valley must pass through it and stop for a time in it; it 
will be the first trading point in the whole valley to be reached 
by railroad, and has excellent prospects of being, for a time, 
the terminus of the Renton railroad, which will probably be 
built in the near future, and it will have the benefit of com- 
munication with the outside markets through the agency of the 



WASHINGTON TERPJTOEY. 79 

steamers soon to be put upon the river as above indicated, and 
taken all in all, there is no good reason why it should not pros- 
per and become a point of prominence. 

In closing this sketch of the upper Chehalis valley, I will 
say I can heartily commend the district above discussed to the 
inspection of home-seekers, and if it receives the unprejudiced 
and patient consideration which it merits, we are confident that 
it can not fail to satisfy. 

I will conclude this sketch of Chehalis county by giving the 
names of all the towns and post offices, which are as follows: 
Montesano, the county seat; Elma, Aberdeen, Bay City, Cedar- 
ville, Cosmopolis, Damon, Hoquiam, Laidlaw, Markham, Mel- 
bourne, Oakville, Peterson's Point, Satsop, Sharon and Sum- 
mit. We will next give a brief description of 

LEWIS 

County, which lies north of Cowlitz county, and through 
which the Northern Pacific railroad passes on its way to Puget 
Sound. 

This is in part an old settled county, especially along the 
line of the railroad. In the northern and southern part there 
is not much desirable vacant land, but in both the eastern and 
western portions, there are thousands of acres of good land; 
the land on the eastern slope of the county being the best for 
agriculture as the timber is somewhat lighter and the surface 
of the ground more level. 

Most all of the extreme western portion is ver7 heavily tim- 
bered, and this timber is a mine of wealth in itself, and when 
the timber is once disposed of, the soil will raise to perfection 
all fruits except peaches, all vegetables except sweet potatoes, 
and all kinds of grain except corn. 

There is sufficient vacant land in Lewis county to-day, to 
furnish homes for at least 800 families, but of course you will 
not find it all ready for the plow when you get here, and I 
would say to all parties who have been accustomed to living in 
a prairie country, that the first glance you get of this country 



80 WASHINGTON TERRITORY. 

will be rather discouraging, as it looks like a life-time job to 
clear out a home in this mighty wilderness, and in fact it is, if 
one should endeavor to clear up an entire quarter section of 
land, but all the settlers I have talked with seem to be satisfied 
with from ten to forty acres, the latter figure being about the 
highest limit, except in a few cases where some of the settlers 
were fortunate enough to get a location in some of the small 
prairies, several of which are to be found in this, cpunt)^, but 
most, if not all of this kind of lands was already taken long ago. 
But it is an undeniable fact, that ten acres in a state of good 
cultivation here, is worth more than forty acres of the old 
worn out land in the eastern states. Right in the good old 
state of Ohio, I have seen plenty of improved land that would 
not raise forty bushels of potatoes to the acre, and as for corn, 
why, I have cut corn in Ross County, Ohio, that I had to stoop 
away over to reach down and get hold of the tassel. Of course 
we do not claim western Washington to be a corn producing 
country, as the nights are too cool, but we do claim and 
can prove that 700 bushels of potatoes have been raised on 
one acre of land without any effort to break a previous record ; 
also, that 900 bushels of rutabagas have been raised on one 
acre. I saw this done on the farm of Mr. John Lauderback 
of Willapa city. Pacific county, in this territory. But 300 
bushels of potatoes is about the average yield per acre, and 
one other important point in raising potatoes here, you don't 
have to go over your potato patch every day to whip off the 
potato bugs, as we are not molested by such stripped backed 
pests. 

The poultry business also pays well in this country, and 
should any of my readers who may ceme to this Pacific coast 
country and engage in that business, you need have no fear of 
that scourge to poultry — chicken cholera — as ia my seven 
years residence here, I have never seen or heard of this disease 
among poultry. Neither do hogs have the hog cholera; 
neither does cattle die off with any contagious disease either 
in Washington or western Oregon. 



WASHINGTON TERRITORY. 81 

About the only domestic animal to suflfer such affliction is 
the horse. Occasionally a disease somewhat similar to the 
epizootic will spread among the horses, and a great many so 
afflicted have died. This disease has been more frequent in 
the Willamette Valley than any other portion of this country. 
Yet it has never spread through the whole valley, but was con- 
fined to one or two counties. 

Chehalis, the county seat of Lewis county, is an enterpris- 
ing little town on the N. P. R- R., and has a population of 
about 700 people; and is well represented in all branches of 
business pertaining to a farming center, as Chehalis is sur- 
rounded on all sides by a thrifty farming settlement. 

In writing my sketch of Cowlitz county, I put the town 
Toledo in that county, which was a mistake, as it is m Lewis 
county, but not far from the Une of Cowlitz county. 

The industries of Lewis county are mixed farming, dairying 
and logging; there are also several saw mills in the county, 
but none of them as large as the Puget Sound mills. 

If a man here has an eighty acre farm, and if he has fifteen 
or twenty acres in cultivation, it is called an improved farm, 
and such a farm can be bought in Lewis county at from $700 
to $1200 according to location and buildings; and really I would 
sooner pay $ioo@ for a farm of eighty acres, with twenty in 
cultivation and some buildings on it, than to go out in the wild 
wilderness and hew out a home on government land that I 
€ould get for the taking. There is plenty of good land all 
over Western Washington, that has from sixty to a hundred 
and fifty fir trees upon an acre, where each tree will be from 
three to five feet in diameter, and the tree itself from 200 to 
300 feet high, while besides that number of large trees, 
there will be more than that number of smaller ones, besides a 
a perfect wilderness of underbrush, consisting of young fir 
and cedar, vine maple and alder, hazel brush, salmon brush, 
salal brush and other smaller kinds too numerous to mention. 
Well, lots of the larger stumps it will take two men for three 
days to grub one out of the ground, or it will take from five to 



82 WASHINGTON TERKITORY. 

ten dollars worth of giant powder to blow one out of the 
ground, and in either case, when it is out of the sjround it is 
still in the way, while you have a hole in the ground that you 
could dump an ordinary school house into. While the body of 
the tree itself is hard to get rid of, yet it can be done with fire 
and lots of hard labor and considerable patience. 

Of course, if you are so located that you can sell your logs 
to some saw mill man, then the price you receive for your logs 
will pay for clearing your land and getting it ready for the plow. 
These few remarks will show that it is no child's play to make a 
home in Western Washington, although most every quarter sec- 
tion, especially those situated along some small river or creek, 
has on it from fifteen to fifty acres that is far more easily cleared, 
spots where there is very little, if any, of the large timber such 
as we have been describing, and where it is only covered with 
small brush, it is easily got rid of. 

I would advise all newcomers from prairie regions to select 
such spots to begin operations, when they will have selected 
and secured their homestead or pre-emption. And there is 
plenty of vacant land suitabk for agriculture, stock raising, 
dairying or logging, though there are other counties in Western 
Washington that are newer, and consequently has more, and 
perhaps better sections of vacant lands. 

The post offices of Lewis county are Chehalis, the county 
seat; Centralia, a live, progressive railroad town some four or 
five miles north of Chehalis and just about as large as the latter 
town; then comes Ainslie, Boistfort, Claquato, Cowlitz, Ethel, 
Fayette, Ladew, Little Falls, Meadow, Mossy Rock, Napavine, 
Osborne, Pe-EU, Rankin, Salkum, Silver Creek, Tildon, Tole- 
do, Vance and Winlock; the las.t named and Napavine being 
lively little railroad towns. 

PIERCE 

County, with an area of 2000 square miles, extends westward 
from the Cascade range to Puget Sound, between White river 
and the fifth standard parallel upon the North and Nisqually 



WASHINGTON TEEKITORY. 83 

river on the south. Its shore line includes Commencement 
Bay or Tacoma harbor, The Narrows, and the splendid and 
commodious harbors of Steilacoom and Nisqually. Its county 
seat is Tacoma. 

The growth of Pierce county in the past four years has been 
steady and remarkable, keeping pace with the progress and 
advance of Tacoma. In February, 1883, the annual assessment 
made the value of taxable property $2,943,406— an increase of 
$i,oS3,2ii over the assessment of 1882. The census made at 
the same time returned a population of 6177 ; the previous 
biennial census in February, 1881, showing 2949— an increase 
of 95 per centum in two years ! An assessment of taxable 
property at this time will amount to $6,000,000. The present 
population of Pierce county is estimated at 13,000. 

Pierce county, with its port, Tacoma, is known to the com- 
mercial world for its extensive production and exportation of 
coal, lumber, barrel material and hops. The mines at Carbo- 
nado are taking out and shipping daily an average of 800 tons, 
while the South Prairie mines produce and export from 200 
to 250 tons per day. In the Puyallup valley, in 1884 there were 
1038 acres planted in hops, producing about 625 tons. 

I would say to men of capital who may come here, " If you 
have any desire to invest money in town property, there is no 
better place in which to invest the same, than in the city of 
Tacoma ! " 

A gentleman? of well-earned reputation, whose means of 
knowledge are of the amplest character— Hon. Paul Schulze, 
general land agent for the N. P. R. R. Co.,— thus sums up the 
" vast resources of the country which must find its outlet at 
Tacoma : First, to speak of the agricultural resources of that 
region, take the valley of Puyallup and its branches— the Stuck 
River valley, White River and Green River valleys — there is a 
vast amount of highly fertile land which can be brought under 
cultivation at comparatively small cost. Take it all in all, I 
believe the country immediately tributary to Tacoma can sup- 
port a rural population almost equaling that now dwelling in 



84 WASHINGTON TEEEITOEY. 

Willamette valley ! Then the coal industry is in its very infancy. 
There are also extensive beds of iron ore near the coal fields, 
and of limestone, all of which must find their outlet at Tacoma. 
Summing up, I am of the opinion that Tacoma is not only 
destined to become important as a port, but as a manufacturing 
center as well ! With vast forests, good coal, iron and limestone 
at its very doors, a rich agricultural country at its back, with 
its railroad and shipping facilities it cannot be otherwise." 

However, I have been told by several gentlemen living just 
south of Tacoma, that in one particular section of the country 
the land is very poor — -simply a hard white clay ; and that sec- 
tion lies south of Tacoma, beginning in five miles of the city, 
and extending on south on both sides of the railroad for about 
ten miles ; and it has every appearance of being very inferior, 
far below the average of the Puget Sound country. I do not 
say this to injure any parties who are now living there, but it is 
my aim to speak truthfully so far as my knowledge of the 
country goes. My own opinion of Pierce county is, that it is 
a number-one place for men of means to invest their money ; 
but I really think there are better places for a poor man with a 
family who is seeking for a home. I merely state the facts as 
gathered by my own observations or secured from trustworthy 
informants. I have no prejudices for nor against any particular 
locality. I also know that Pierce county, and particularly in 
and around Tacoma, is an excellent place for poor single men 
who desire to work for wages by day or month at hard manual 
labor ; for very high wages are paid in all branches of labor, 
whether in a sawmill, logging camp, coal mine, ship-yard, or 
fishing. Carpenters receive $3.00 to $3.50 per day, logging- 
camp men from $40 to $100 a month and board, according to 
what kind of work they do. Only the teamster or bull-whacker 
gets as high as $100 ; while the sawyers, fallers and skidders 
get $60 and $65 ; swampers and barkers get $40 to $50. The 
greaser—whose duty it is to carry a bucket of grease in one 
hand and a brush in the other,, and walk along just behind the 
rear yoke of oxen and rub his grease-brush over every skid just 



WASHINGTON TERRITOKY. 85 

before the end of the log reaches the skid — he receives from 
$3© to $40 a month. Sawmill hands get about $40 ; rafters 
get $2.50 a day. I do not know what the coal miners get, as 
most of them mine by the ton. School teachers get $35 to $60 
a month. In country schools, male teachers generally receive 
$40 a month and " board around." I believe I have given all 
the information I possess concerning Pierce county, and will 
conclude by giving a list of the towns and post-offices — begin- 
ning with Tacoma, county seat, 7000 population ; Alderton, 
Artondale, Carbonado, Fort Steilacoom, Gig Harbor, Hillhfurst,, 
Lake Bay, Lake View, Leber, Marion, Minter, Muck, Orting, 
Purdy, Puyallup, Rosedale, Roy, Sumner, Steilacoom City^ 
Melrose and Wilkeson. 

THURSTON 

County is mainly noted as containing the city of Olympia, the 
capital of the territory. 

I have no statistics of Thurston county, and as I have trav- 
eled very little over this county, I am not able to say very 
much in regard to it. 

In the southern part of the county there are thousands of 
acres of very line looking land still vacant and open to home- 
stead entry, A large portion of it is easily cleared, and the 
surface of the ground is low land and level for this part of the 
country, with a rich black looking soil capable of producing 
grains, vegetables and fruits in abundance. Of course the 
country is timbered, but not so dense as in the northern part 
of the county. About ten miles south of Olympia and along 
the stage road leading down Black river to Montesano, is a kind 
of prairie district; it is some seven or eight miles long by two 
miles wide; there is no timber on it, and in fact, there don't 
seem to be anything grow on it but fern. I saw five deserted 
dwelling houses on it, and when I reached the timber region 
where people were living along the road, I asked several why 
the houses were deserted back on that prairie and the land 
grown up with fern, and they all said that the land would not 



se 



WASHINGTON TEELITOEY. 



raise anything else but fern, and the people who had lived in 
the five deserted houses were starved out and had to leave the 
prairie, as the land was so poor it would not raise grass enough 
to the acre to keep a sheep from starving to death. 

The industries of Thurston county, are mixed agriculture, 
dairying, stock raising, lumbering and fishing. The wages paid 
here are about the same as are paid in Pierce county. 

At Tenino, a small town on the N. F. R. R., a narrow guage 
railroad connects and runs from there to Olympia, thus giving 
the people of the territorial capital a chance to get to the outside 
world. Steamboats also run daily from Olympia to Tacoma and 
Seattle. Olympia has a population of about 4000 people, and 
the population of the county would not exceed 8000 people, but 
there is plenty of room for three times that amount of people to 
find and make for themselves good and comfortable homes. I 
would advise new comers looking for vacant land, to first in- 
spect the southern part of the county. 

The towns and post offices of Thurston, are Olympia, Grand 
Mound, Independence, Little Rock, Seatco, Tenino, Tumwa- 
ter and Yelm. 

MASON 

County lies west of Thurston and north of Chehalis counties; 
It is not a large county, and is very sparsely settled. 

Almost the entire county is heavily timbered, and logging is 
the main industry. A great part of this county is yet unsur- 
veyed, so the land seeker can here have his pick and choice of 
vacant land, and no doubt there are plenty of fine locations 
along some of the many creeks and smaller streams. 

Oakland is the county seat, the other towns are Arcadia, 
Clifton, Dewatto, Kamilche, Shelton and Skokomish. 

JEFFERSON 

County lies north of Mason and a part of Chehalis counties, 
and its western boundary is the Pacific ocean. 

It is also like Mason, very heavily timbered, but is a much 
larger and wealthier county. Over half of the western part is 



WASHINGTON TERRITOKY. 87 

yet unsurveyed, and a great part of it unexplored by white 
men. 

Jefferson county is noted for its large saw mills, three of 
•xvhich are among the largest on Puget Sound. The first one 
of importance is the Port Discovery mill, located in 1856 on a 
bay of that name near the entrance to the sound, and owned 
by a California company. In 1882 the building occupied a 
space of 27,000 square feet, to which large additions were 
made since. 

Extensive additions were also made in the machines, which 
makes the present cutting capacity about 120,000 feet per day. 

In 1882, twenty-four vessels were loaded at this mill for 
coast and foreign ports. The company own the powerful tug 
S. L. Mastic, the ship War Hawk, the bark Mary Glover, and 
the brig Mary Glover. 

The Port Townsend mill is next in size and cutting capaci- 
ty. This mill has a capacity of 150,000 a day, or the com- 
bined capacity of the two mills is 270,000 feet of lumber per 
day. 

The next and largest of the three mills in Jefferson county 
is the Port Ludlow mill. This splendid structure is one of the 
properties of the Puget Sound Mill Company, and as there are 
a great many mills on the sound of about the same size and 
capacity as the Port Ludlow mill, we will give a brief descrip- 
tion of the latter mill, and that will answer for all the rest. 
The mill building is 65x43 feet, two stories high, the first be- 
ing 16 feet 6 inches high, the second 16 feet. The boiler house 
and engine room is 49x65 feet and contains fifteen boilers, six 
of which are 36 inches in diameter. The fire fronts face each 
other, the smoke being conveyed by an archway to the smoke- 
stack, which is TO I feet high, with a base of 14 feet 6 inches 
and a flue 6x6 feet the entire length. There are two engines; 
one with a 24x36 inch cylinder and the other a Corliss engine 
with a cylinder 20x30 inches. The shafts and fly wheels at- 
tached to these engines are of corresponding dimensions. A 
double acting pump with engine combined, furnishes water to 



88 WASHINGTON TEKRITORY. 

the boilers. The first story of the mill contains the necessary 
counter-shafts to which is attached the machinery in the upper 
story, together with chutes to carry the sawdust to the furnace 
and the slabs and trimmings to a distance of 300 feet or more 
from the mill to be burned. 

In the first story are also two large surface planers for pre- 
paring dock plank, flooring, rustic, etc. 

In the second story of the mill, the machinery consists of 
three large horizontal circular saws and one vertical saw to be 
used in cutting large logs without additional labor. The car- 
riages are 103 feet long and are set on trucks thirteen inches 
in diameter fitted to a track of two inch round iron, propelled 
by wire rope or cable gear, head blocks of Robb's patent with 
a ratchet lever. The logs in passing the circular are carried 
on live rollers eighty-five feet to a chain haul over and placed 
on similar rollers, then passing through one of the celebrated 
Week's pony gang saws if required, or they pass from the cir- 
cular 170 feet to a gang edger or scantling machine, and being 
trimmed and assorted are placed on a receiver over a hoisting 
machine, by which the lumber is raised to cars placed under 
it and carried on tramways to any desired part of the wharf, to 
which vessels of any draft can come with facility. Opposite 
the double circular or frame containing the four saws, is a live 
gang saw with equal improved facilities, rollers,, hoisting ma- 
chines, etc., by which lumber can be moved to other machines 
by the mere application of the sawyer's hand, or by pulling a 
lever. 

There are two filing rooms 12x25 ^^er the boiler house, and 
an additional structure 16x50 feet provides room for the lath 
machines. 

About 4,000,000 feet of lumber and 400,000 shingles were 
used in the construction of this mill, the cutting capacity of 
which will reach 250,000 feet per day. 

This is one of the very largest mills on Puget Sound, or in 
the world, so far as I know. 

Besides these three mills as described above, there are of 



WASHINGTON TEERITORY. 89 

course many small ones in Jefferson county, employing alto- 
gether, hundreds of men. 

The towns and postoffices of Jefferson county, are Port 
Townsend, the county seat; Port Ludlow, Port Discovery, 
Hadlock, Irondale, Leland and Quilcene. 

KING 

County lies on the east side of Puget Sound north of Pierce 
county, and contains Seattle, the queen city of Puget Sound. 
It has a population of about 8500, and is in every respect a live, 
pushing city ; an immense amount of shipping is done, the 
the greater part of which is lumber. 

The northeastern part of King county is mountainous. King 
county is drained by several small rivers ; among them are 
White River, Green River, Duamish River, Cedar River, and 
Snoqualmie River. There are yet many fine locations for home 
seekers along these streams, especially along the latter. Nearly 
all of King county is heavily timbered, and especially so along 
the Sound. The towns and post offices of King county are : 
Seattle, county seat; Adelaide, Bellevue, Black Diamond, 
Christopher, Cherry Valley, Donnelly, Duamish, Enumclaw, 
Falls City, FrankHn, Green River, Houghton, Juanita, Kent, 
Maple '/alley. New Castle, Novelty, Osceola, Redmond, Slaugh- 
ter, Snoqualmie, Squak, Stuck, Sunnydale, Tolt, Vashon, 
White River, and Woodinville. 

There are two large sawmills in Seattle, but most all the rest 
that are scattered through the county are small. 

KITSAP 

County lies directly west of King county, and north of Mason 
county. It is a very small county. The main body of Puget 
Sound lies between King and, Kitsap counties; while on the 
western border of Kitsap is Hood's Canal, a fine body of water; 
and on the north is Admiralty Inlet. So it will be seen that 
Kitsap county is almost surrounded by water. Kitsap county 
is noted for its several large sawmills. First is the Blakely mill, 



90 WASHINGTON TEREITOEY. 

which lies directly opposite Seattle, distant about seven miles ; 
and closely connected socially and commercially. These 
are considered one of the sights which the tourist ought not to 
miss seeing. 

From the electric lights which make the short days of winter 
ample for a full quota of work down to the minutest detail of 
the vast establishment, everything that money and business 
capacity can suggest, is added to the working force of these 
great mills. 

The mill company own the following fleet : tug Blakely; ship 
Topgallant, capacity of 1,000,000 feet ; ship Otago, 700,000 
feet ; bark Martha Rideout, 700,000 feet; bark Lizzie Marshall, 
550,000 feet; bark R. K. Ham, 750,000; and schr. Courser, 
525,000 feet. 

The cutting capacity of the Blakely mills is an average of 
175,000 a day. The Port Madison mill is situated a few miles 
north of the Blakely mill, and also on east side of the county, 
next to the Sound. This extensive establishment comes to the 
front with an average daily output of 125,000, and challenges 
comparison with any mill on the Sound in completeness of 
detail and appointment. 

PORT GAMBLE MILL. 

This is another of the properties of the Puget Sound Mill 
Co., located near the northern end of the county on Admiralty 
Inlet, and in the extent of its operations and the perfection of 
its appointments falls but little (if any) short of any other estab- 
lishment devoted to similar purposes on the Sound. Its cutting 
capacity is about 150,000 feet per day. 

The Seabeck mill is situated on Hood's Canal, an arm of the 
Sound — which, in any country but this, would be considered 
a magnificent inland sea of itself ! The cutting capacity of this 
mill is 200,000 feet per day. Here we have four sawmills in 
one little county, the combined cutting capacity of which is 
650,000 feet of lumber per day — that, sold at $9.00 per M feet 
rough lumber, would bring $5850 a day ! But fully one-third 



WASHINGTON TERRITORY. 91 

of this lumber is planed and finished, and as such, brings about 
$i8 per M feet. It will be seen that it takes a great many men 
to run these four mills. 

Port Madison is the county seat of Kitsap county, and the 
other towns and post-offices are : Blakely, Colby, Mitchel, Neb- 
bieville, Olalla, Port Gamble, Poulsbo, Sackman, Seabeck 
and Sidney. 

CLALLAM 

County lies north of Jefferson, and its western boundary is the 
Pacific ocean, its eastern boundary is an arrn of Jefferson 
county, while its northern boundary is the strait of Juan de 
Fuca. Clallam county also lies directly south of Vancouver 
Island, separated only by the strait mentioned. 

The western and southern parts of this county is mountain- 
ous. There is some fine country in the northern and eastern 
parts of the county. 

A great portion of the county is yet unsurveyed, but anyone 
can take a squatters right and settle on the land and stay untill 
it is surveyed. 

This county has seventeen small rivers and creeks, but none 
are very large; five of them flow west and empty into the Pa- 
cific ocean, and twelve flow north and empty into the strait of 
Juan de Fuca. 

The county seat is New Dungeness, situated in the extreme 
northeastern part of the county; the rest of the towns and post 
offices are Crescent Bay, Neah Bay, Port Angeles, Pysht, Quil- 
layute, Seguin and Tatoosh. 

ISLAND 

County is, as its name implies, an island, situated in the north- 
ern part of Puget Sound; the island is about twenty-five 
miles long and from three to ten miles wide. Of the character 
of the country I know very little, as I have never traveled over 
this county; neither can I state whether there is any vacant 
land or not. 



92 WASHINGTON TEREITORY. 

The county seat is Coupeville. It has but few other towns 
and post offices, but I will give them so that if any of my 
readers are interested in this county and think they would like 
to live on a small island surrounded by salt water, they can ad- 
dress a letter of inquiry to the post masters of these little burgs, 
when no doubt they will receive the desired information. They 
are as follows: Oak Harbor, Phinney, Useless and Utsal- 
addy. 

SAN JUAN 

County lies between Skagit county on the east and Vancouver's 
Island, British Columbia, on the west, and consists of nothmg 
but a few very small islands; the most important of which are 
San Juan, Orcas, Stwart and Lopez. 

On Orcas Island there are several small improved farms, 
where they raise immense crops of oats and vegetables, while 
some of the smaller islands not named here, are devoted to 
sheep and goat raising, as the small ones are generally very 
rough and rocky, and not fit for agriculture, while by puttmsj a 
drove of sheep on them, there is no danger of them straymg 
off and getting lost, as these little islands are very small, con- 
taining all the way from twenty to two hundred acres each, and 
surrounded by the deep and salty water of Puget Sound. 

It is a fact, that several of these little islands, are owned by 
as many different men, that is to say, each man owns his own 
little island, and he can truthfully say, like Robmson Cruso, 
"I am monarch of all I survey." 

Friday Harbor is the county seat of San Juan county, the 
other post offices are Doe Bay, East Sound, Lime Kiln, Orcas 
Island, Lopez Island, Roche Harbor and Waldron. 

This is all I can say of San Juan county. We will now ex- 
amine 

SNOHOMISH 

County which lies due north of King and south of Skagit 
counties, and like these two counties, lies on the east side of 
Puget Sound, while its eastern boundary is the Cascade range 



WASHINGTON TEREITORY. 08 

of mountains. Of Snohomish county we will give a more 
comprehensive description, as I have traveled considerably 
Over this county, and lived in the county seat for a period of 
two months; besides I have been aided considerably by Mr. 
Clayton H. Packard, editor of a spicy newspaper published in 
Snohomish City, and entitled The Eye, and Mr. Packard's 
"Eye" manages to catch everything of importance going on in 
Snohomish county. 

^^The Eye'' is $2 a year in advance and well worth the 
money. 

Isolated from present through routes of travel, few people, 
not long residents of Puget Sound, hear or know much of 
Snohomish county, its prospects or resources; yet it is doubt- 
ful if any other part of the sound country can be named, which, 
in the past, has been more valuable as a tributaty to the growth 
of Seattle, than this county. How valuable an auxilliary it 
promises to be towards maintaining such growth hereafter, may 
be judged by the following statement: 

Snohomish county is sixty-five miles long east and west, and 
thirty-six miles wide north and south. The county has an area 
of about 2500 square miles, or i, 600,00c acres. Of this 
area, about one-third is mountainous, one-third fertile marsh 
or bottom land, and the rest upland sufficiently level to be cul- 
tivated when the timber is once removed. 

Nearly all of the mountain land is covered with valuable 
timber, and over one-half of it is fertile, and should the timber 
be removed, valuable for hay or pasturage. 

Considering both soil and climate, one acre of marsh or 
bottom land here has a productive value equal to three acres of 
Iowa or Illinois prairie. 

The agricultural value of the upland will average about one- 
half that of the low lands. Most of the upland is covered 
with timber, which costs too much to pay for clearing it ex- 
pressly for agricultural purposes. But forest fires annually 
burn over many thousand acres of such land, and there are 
also many thousand acres of old logging works, partially 



94 WASHINGTON TERRITOKY. 

cleared, making excellent pasture, which now will pay to finish 
clearing for farming purposes. In the county, of these old 
bui-ns and logging works, there are not less than from 2oo,©oo 
to 300,000 acres, partially cleared, that will pay to improve for 
farming purposes. Of these fully 50,000 acres now furnish 
excellent pasturage nine months out of each year. With the 
increase of logging and the extension of settlements, the am- 
ount will be double during the next five years at the present 
rate of increase. 

During the past twenty-five years, logging has been a lead- 
ing industry of this county. Perhaps more logs have been 
cut within the county than anywhere else on Puget Sound. 

In i860, logging began on salt water, and during the next 
five years extended up the rivers. In all, fully 1,000,000,000 
or more logs have been cut in this county; and for several years 
past, the output has exceeded 75,000,000 feet per annum. At 
present there are about 1,000,000 acres of land covered with 
fir and cedar timber. As much of this will yield 20,000,000 
feet per section; with individual claims on which from 8,000,- 
ooo to 10,000,000 feet of fir timber fit for logging purposes, 
can be found standing on 160 acres of land, it is safe to esti- 
mate the timber still standing within the county as amounting 
to the total of from 5,000,000,000 to 10,000,000,000 feet 
board measure, of what would make merchantable saw logs. 
It may be stated generally, that throughout the Puget Sound 
country, wherever fossiliferous rocks exist near the surface, we 
may look for coal, and wherever non-fossiliferous rocks come 
to the surface, iron, copper, lead, gold and silver ore may be 
found. This rule will especially apply to this county. No 
quartz mills have ever been established and no coal mines 
opened and worked; yet from the general formation of the 
strata, as well as from the prospecting already done here, it is 
safe to say that very extensive and valuable deposits of coal, 
iron, lead, copper, gold and silver are found within the county, 
besides building stone, marble, limestone, etc. In nearly every 
stream, placer gold has been found, while the Sultan river, a 



WASHINGTON TERRITOKY. 95 

Stream tributary to the Skykomish branch of the Snohomish 
river, and situated some twenty miles east of Snohomish City 
has yielded more gold during the past twenty years than has 
been found on all other Puget Sound streams put together. 
Further up the Skykomish is another tributary stream called 
Silver Creek. On this stream and near it are found ledges or 
lodes of galena and silver bearing quartz. 

This region has been prospected sufficient to establish quartz 
mills in that vicinity and make that a great quartz mining cen- 
ter. A strip from twenty to thirty miles in width along the 
west side of the county next to salt water, is generally level; 
that is, the upland is from two to three hundred feet above the 
level of the bottoms, and when this height is reached, the sur- 
face of the upland from stream to stream is that of a level 
plateau, sometimes marshy with fertile soil, except at the edges 
of these plateaus, where the descent to the bottoms is so ab- 
rupt as to cause all the cement and gravel to be washed out of 
the soil, leaving the less fertile elements at such places behind. 
The lower portions of all the main rivers in the county, appear 
to run through what were once arms of the sound, now filled 
with sediment from the mountains, and forming the fertile bot- 
tom lands along their banks. 

The foothills begin from twenty to thirty miles east of salt 
water. These foothills are spurs from the main Cascade range 
of mountains, and generally extend east and west, with valleys 
and basins between. 

As one goes to the eastward, these valleys become narrower, 
the basins smaller and the mountains more rugged until the 
summit of the main range is reached. In the first foothills 
are found lignite coal, higher up bituminous and near the sum- 
mit where fossiliferous rocks present themselves one may ex- 
pect to find croppings of anthracite coal. 

The southern part of the county, together with the north- 
eastern part of King county, is drained by the Snohomish 
river and its tributaries, while the Stillaguamish river drains its 
northern part. Each of these streams fork or divide into two 



06 WASHINGTON TEKKITOEY. 

branches, something over twenty miles above their mouths. 
The tributaries of the Stillaguamish are called North and 
South Forks; those of the Snohomish are called the Skyko- 
mish and the Snoqualmie rivers. The latter is really the main 
stream. 

The greater part of the Snoqualmie river and its valley 
are situated in King county. Much of its trade and business 
centers at Snohomish. The present value of improved property, 
amount of trade, value of annual products, and number of 
people now residents of the Snoqualmie, about equal that of 
Stillaguamish valley. Therefore, the present trade and business 
of the valley of the Snohomish and its tributaries— most of 
which centers at Snohomish City— about equals the total trade 
of all of Snohomish county. 

The Snohomish valley first became generally known during 
the Indian war of 1855-6, when it was occupied by the North- 
ern Battalion, Washington territory militia. Its settlement 
began in 1858. The first settlers (few of whom came before 
i860) were soldiers of this battalion and returned Frazer-river 

miners. 

Muckilteo was settled by Frost and Fowler about this time. 
The county was organized in 1861, but no white women came 
here before 1863, and none to stay before 1864. The settle- 
ment on the Stillaguamish began about 1864. Prior to 1870, 
there were not over twenty white women in the county ; since 
then, most of the settlers have brought families. Now the total 
white population exceeds 3000 with about 500 Indians. Nearly 
all the Indians are in employ of the farmers and loggers, and 
thus add to the wealth of the county. The settlements are 
distributed mainly along salt water and up the Snohomish and 
Stillaguamish valleys. 

The south line of the county is twelve miles north of Seattle. 
Edmunds, ten miles south of Mukilteo, and two miles north of 
the King county line, is the business center of the southwest 
part of the county. It possesses a fine view up and' down Ad- 
miralty Inlet. There are some good lands in its vicinity. 



WASHINGTON TEKKITORY. 97 

Mukilteo is now mainly supported by the salmon fishery and 
some farming lands in its vicinity. In early days it was an 
important business center. 

Stanwood, at the mouth of the Stillaguamish, is the leading 
town in the northwestern part of the county, and the center of 
the trade of the Stillaguamish tide flats. 

Florence, on the river some five miles above Stanwood, is a 
thriving town, dividing with Stanwood the trade of the northern 
part of Snohomish county. 

On Snohomish river, business centers are Snohomish City, 
Lowell and Marysville. During the past three years a number 
of persons have settled north of Marysville, and this place has 
stlso increased greatly in size and business- importance. It con- 
trols the trade of the' lower river. Comeford, the tow^nsite 
proprietor, is also improving several hundred acres of tide-marsh 
land in the vicinity. 

Lowell is on the main river, halfway between Snohomish City 
and the mouth of the river. 

Snohomish City — the county seat and chief business center 
of Snohomish county — contains a resident population of about 
800 people, with from two to three hundred more loggers, who 
winter here and make this place their headquarters, but work 
in the woods in the summer. The town has about 150 families, 
one Methodist and one Presbyterian church, numerous secret 
and benevolent societies, two good hotels, one newspaper, two 
butcher shops, a half dozen or more stores, etc. Upwards of 
2000 people do nearly all their trading here, and the total local 
and export trade of the place exceeds one million dollars per 
annum. 

Except on the Stillaguamish tide-flats, until recently nearly 
allagricultural products of the county consisted of live-stock, 
vegetables and hay, nearly all of which were sold to and used 
in the many loggmg-camps of the county. The tide-flats sold 
annually about 30,000 bushels of oats. For the past year the 
produce of the county may be summarized as follows : About 
10,000 tons of hay, raised on 4000 acres of land; 100,000 



98 WASHINGTON TEKEITOEY. 

bushels of oats, raised on 1500 acres of land; 15,000 bushels 
of wheat and barley, etc., raised on 300 acres ; 170,000 bushels 
of potatoes, raised on 600 acres of land. The total value of 
other products— fruits and vegetables — would exceed $100,000. 
There are in the county over 6000 horses and cattle, and as 
many more sheep and hogs. Exclusive of pasturage, there are 
about 10,000 acres of land in cultivation. 

Most residents of Puget Sound are willing to assume that 
within the next generation, the resources of all this region 
will be as well developed as they now are in any of tlie Eastern 
States ! What will then be the status of Snohomish county ? 
With an area over one half as great as that of the state of Con- 
necticut, with a soil and climate so superior to that state, that 
if equally developed, with manufactures, mining, etc., in pro- 
portion, its annual products may be expected to equal in value 
the whole now annually produced in that state ! 

The towns and postoffices of Snohomish county, are Snoho- 
mish City, county seat; Edmunds, Florence, Lowell, Marysville, 
Mukilteo, Stanwood, Stillaguamish, Sultan City, Tualco and 
Tulalip. 

This ends our sketch of Snohomish county; except we may 
say, that a railroad is under course of construction to connect 
Snohomish City with Seattle, which will greatly enhance the 
value of land in this county. We will now proceed to give a 
brief description of 

^ SKAGIT COUNTY. 

This county lies directly north of Snohomish county, extend- 
ing the same distance east and west. Its western boundary 
is the salt waters of Puget Sound, its eastern boundary the 
Cascade range of mountains, and its northern boundary is 
Whatcom county. Skagit county is a new county, at least* in 
name. 

In 1883, Whatcom county being a very large one, and at 
that time it had only two important towns, Whatcom and La 
Conner, the one situated in the northern part of the county and 
the other in the southern part, and Whatcom being the county 



A.,.- 



WASHINGTON TERKITORY. 99 

seat, it was too far and inconvenient for the people residing in 
the southern part of the county to go to Whatcom to attend 
court, or any other official business, so the county was split in 
two from east to west, the southern half being called Skagit, 
as that is the name of the most important river in the countj. 
Skagit is undoubtedly a fine country, and especially beautiful 
in the vicinity of La Conner, the county seat. The land is 
not only beautiful in location, but it is as rich and fertile a& 
any land on the Pacific Coast, not even excepting the very rich- 
est spots in the famed Willamette Valley of Oregon. 

It is what is called marsh land, and about 5000 acres in one 
body has been diked in, which means building a levy, the same 
as is done along the lower Mississippi river, to keep the water 
from overflowing it. This land has no stumps or trees on it, 
and it is as level as a table. Oats is the main crop raised on it, 
but of course it will and does raise vegetables, unsurpassed in 
size and quality. While the average amount of oats raised is 
ninety bushels to the acre and will generally weigh 42 pounds 
to the bushel. This land, highly improved as it is., will take 
money to get it. Some of the farmers owning this land have 
refused |ioo an acre for it, while it is doubtful if any of it can 
be bought for $50 an acre. And why should they not hold 
such land at a higher figure, when it has no superior in fertility 
in the United States; and lying as it does in a country pos- 
sessed with a fine, salubrious climate, free from malaria or oth- 
er troublesome complaints; in a country where earthquakes, 
cyclones, blizzards, chinch bugs and drouths are unknown; in a 
country situated on the finest inland body of water in the world, 
where the largest ships can float in safety, and carry away with 
them the bountiful products of this fair land to the ports of the 
foreign world. 

Now in the same county, as also in Snohomish and Whacom 
counties, there is plenty of this same kind of land that is yet 
unimproved, and lying here waiting for some energetic men 
with money, brains and energy, to come here and make it 
"blossom as the rose." 



100 WASHINGTON TERRITORY. 

A great portion of this land is owned by private parties who 
will sell it reasonable in its wild state, and there is yet many fine 
tracts of such land still lying vacant in all three of the coun- 
ties mentioned. Potatoes and vegetables here reach a degree 
of perfection not to be excelled. 

A home market exists in the supply of the numerous log- 
ging camps located along the river. Hay is worth $i8 a ton, 
and three tons to the acre is the average yield, while potatoes 
are worth $1.50 per sack, and other products in Hke proportion. 
During the past year a considerable number of settlers have 
located in this county and others are coming, and still others 
are needed; though there is no room for bums, bachelors or 
speculators. There yet remains open for settlement a valley 
twenty-five miles in length and from one to two miles in width. 
Here the farmer might find a home for himself and family, pos- 
sessing at the same time the fundamental basis of all success- 
ful agricultural operations, viz: a good soil. The mild and sal- 
ubrious breezes of the springtime, the summer sun, making 
our valley rich and like a lilly in full bloom, a magnificent 
arena spreading before the view a vast amphitheater of endless 
green, all combine to hail with delight the advent of the ad- 
venturous settler. 

The Bennett-Mackey postal telegraph line crosses the valley 
about five miles from Stanwood, and the Bellingham Bay rail- 
way line is located to cross the valley about twelve miles from 
the above mentioned place, though it is exceedingly probable 
that ir will be built further up the river. The completion of 
this line, connecting as it will California and British Columbia, 
will give this valley, and the county as well, every advantage 
enjoyed by the older settled valleys of the territory; hence it is 
imperative that the intending settler should not defer making 
his location as the time will quickly come, when "many shall 
seek to enter in and shall not be able." 

Towns and postoffices of Skagit county, are as follows: 
La Conner, county seat; Anacortes, Avon, Bay View, Birds- 
view, Blanchard, Deception, Edison, Fir, Fidalgo, Guemes, 



WASHINGTON TERKITORY. 101 

Hamilton, Lyman, Mt. Baker, Mt. Vernon, Padilla, Prairie, 
Samish, Sauk, Sedro, Skagit and Sterling. We now enter up- 
on a description of 

WHATCOM 

County, last but not least on our list of Washington Territory- 
counties. It is the extreme northwestern county of the terri- 
tory. Jts northern boundary is the British Columbia line, its 
eastern, the Cascade range and Moses Reservation, its western 
Bellingham Bay and the Gulf of Georgia. Its most important 
river is the Nooksack, rising away up in the Cascade range 
and emptying into Bellingham Bay. 

County Surveyor Iverson informs the Whatcom Reveille^ 
that in the north fork of the Nooksack valley, there is the 
finest body of agricultural lands in the territory. The valleys 
which are three in number, are several miles in length, and 
from two to five miles in width, and cover an area equivalent 
to an entire township. The greater portion of this unsettled 
and undeveloped section yet remains unsurveyed. The soil is 
said to be equal to the South Fork soil, and the land can be 
more readily cleared; besides the north and middle forks of 
the Nooksack river, mountain streams and spring brooks per- 
meate the valleys, affording an abundance of water for all pur- 
poses. In the section known as the North Valley, as yet with- 
out a settler, there exists a chain of beautiful lakes, varying in 
size from loo to 800 acres in extent, with broad bottom land 
extending from the lake shores back to the foot of the mount- 
ains, which extend up from either side of the valley, Mr Iv- 
erson is of the opinion that 100 or more families could find 
desirable locations in this section of Whatcom county as soon 
as the land can be surveyed and placed upon the market for 
homestead and pre-emption entries. There are a few squatters 
now in the valley who propose to remain and perfect title after 
the land has been surveyed. A county road has been granted 
and will be opened to the forks of the river and to North 
Valley, about 30 miles east of Whatcom. 

One peculiarity of the Puget Sound region, is the diversified 



102 WASHINGTON TERRITOKY. 

character of the soil, it frequently happening, that on a quarter 
section of land you will find almost as many and diverse kinds 
of soil as there are parti-colored squares in a patch work quilt. 
These different soils may be properly classified and disting- 
uished, the one from the other, according to their several pe- 
culiarities as follows: 

First — The sandy loam on the river bottom lands, proper. 
This soil is quick, warm and finely and generally well adapted 
to the production of grasses, grains, fruits, vegetables and hops. 

Second — We have the clay loam, which occupies considera- 
ble areas in cercam localities, notably on the northern border 
of the marshy prairie to the north of Linden, in Whatcom 
county. This is a .strong soil, wearing well and possibly ad- 
apted to as wide a range of productions, only somewhat infer- 
ior to the sandy loam in natural warmth and in average pro- 
ducing qualities. In the estimation of some, however, and for 
wha t they conceive to be good reasons, it is thought to be su- 
perior to the sandy loam. 

Third —We have the red lands which are generally found 
covered with a growth of fir, sometimes heavy, and which by 
the actual experiment of raising a variety of crops has been 
demonstrated to be, in contradistinction to such lands in other 
localities, not only immensely productive, but with a wide and 
as yet not fully determined range of adaptation to diversity of 
products. It combines in itself, and in its power to produce, 
fertility, durability and diversity. 

Fourth— We have a soil claimed by some to be not only 
the most fertile, but the most perfectly adapted to the wid- 
est range of products, cereals, fruits, vegetables, grasses, hops, 
onions, etc., it is called the beaver dam land. This seems 
to be a composite of the different soils which the ingenious 
and industrious beaver in constructing their numerous and 
extensive dams in our marshes and across our streams, have 
dug up and mixed together in at least comparatively propor- 
tioned quantities. These lands in places comprise areas of 
hundreds of acres. Warmth, fertility, durability and diversity 



WASHINGTON TERRITORY. 103 

indicate the chief characteristic of this choice and unique 
variety of soil. 

Whatever may be either the relative or actual value of 
the beaver dam lands, as compared with other soils, certain 
it is that they are by universal consent conceded to be super- 
ior in every respect to all other lands, probably on the phil- 
osophical principal, that the whole is equal to all its parts 
and consequently greater than or superior to any individual 
part. The land seeker and buyer will certainly not go amiss 
in investing his money in as much of this land as he may be 
able to buy. 

A fifth and last variety of soil in the order named — but now 
in the opinion of its admirers and champions — is the peat lands, 
so called from the fact that it is almost if not quite, in appear- 
ance and in combustible qualities, a fac simile of the peat lands 
of Europe ; and is, in fact, what its nature implies— composed 
of decayed vegetable matter which for countless centuries has 
been building from successive deposits, as the numerous forms 
of vegetation have sprung up, died and decayed— passing 
through the various stages from purely vegetable matter to soil. 
Thorough drainage and careful cultivation have not as yet satis- 
factorily demonstrated the actual value of this soil as to fertility, 
durability or diversity. Still, it is the candid and unbiased 
opinion of the most intelligent men and observers in the com- 
munity, that the peat land will not suffer by comparison with 
any of the soils named in the foregoing article, and is vastly 
superior to some of them. It is the general opinion, amply 
confirmed by experience up to date, that these lands are espe- 
cially adapted to grasses; and that conseq^uently, the marsh 
prairie or peat lands to the northward of Lynden — owing to this 
fact, -as well as the largely open character of the land, and the 
ease with which the remainder may be cleared—is destined to 
be, par excellencej the great stock region of Puget Sound and 
Whatcom county; 

A feature of special significance and satisfaction in regard to 
these lyarious soils, is that each individual may take his choice ; 



104 WASHINGTON TERKITORY. 

and while one, for what he thinks substantial reasons, may 
choose the sandy loam of the river bottoms ; another, the clay 
or the red lands ; and still another, the beaver-dam or the peat 
— it is all utilized, and every one is abundantly satisfied. 

Upon and out of these marvelously fertile soils, as a solid 
and enduring material basis, is destined to be built up a civil 
commonwealth — a society and a civilization at one and the 
same time — -wealthy, patriotic, cultured and progressive. — 
[Notes from Whatcom Reveille.^ 

The towns and post-offices of Whatcom county are : What- 
com, county seat ; Beach, Bellingham, Birch View, Blaine, 
Custer, Delta, Ferndale, Gera, Hillsdale, Licking, Lummi, 
Lynden, Nooksack, Park, Roeder, Sehome, Semiahmo, West 
Ferndale, Woodlawn and Yager. 

This now concludes my descriptive review of Washington 
Territory ; and I feel confident that any one buying this book 
and perusing its contents, will get the worth of their dollar. 



I now conclude my work by giving a very brief review of the 
City of Portland, the metropolis of the Northwest : 

What is known as Portland lies on the west side of the Wil- 
lamette river, about twelve miles from its mouth, and now has 
a population of something near 40,000 people. Although the 
forty-second city in size,it is claimed to be the third richest city 
in the United States, as compared to size ! 

You can buy anything in the city of Portland that you could 
buy in Chicago ! There are over a dozen papers published in 
the city, the leading one being the Oregonia7i. It is a news- 
paper in every sense of the word, and contains the weekly news 
from every quarter of the globe. The Portland News^ under 
its new management', is rapidly coming to the front as a live, 
progressive paper. 

There are also ten or tw^elve regular job printing offices, 
where book and job printing of every kind is done. The city 
has manufactories of various sorts, also stove and iron foundries. 
It also has over twenty churches, every denomination being 



WASHINGTON TERRITORY. 103 

well represented It has also two good colleges, and numerous 
public and private schools, while its fire department is the pride 
of the city. At night the streets are as well patrolled by as 
large and powerful a set of policemen as any city can boast. 
They are all large, resolute men — one of them, officer Henline 
by name — weighing 320 pounds ! and yet very spry on foot, as 
lots of the rogues and toughs of Portland can testify to. 

As for hotels, there are at least twenty of them, three of 
which are first-class ; but I would recommend immigrants to 
stop at the International, as there you will be made to *' feel 
at home," and your every want attended to, while the table is 
supplied with the very best that the market affords ; and all 
cooked by white labor^ as no Chinese are employed in the 
house; you also get good clean beds — all at $1.00 a day. 

Directly opposite the city of Portland is East Portland, sep- 
arated only by the broad Willamette, yet easy of access to and 
fro by four steam ferries, located at different points along the 
river; and also by two bridges, one of them just completed the 
past summer, the other one now rapidly nearing completion. 

The suburbs of Albina, St. John's, Selwood and Milwaukie, 
are all lively little places, all convenient to Portland. 

Portland is the main shipping point of the Northwest, and 
ships from every part of the civilized world anchor at her docks. 
I have counted over three hundred vessels, great and small, all 
lying at the wharves of Portland, on one day. 

It has been no light task to conpile, arrange and write 
this work ; to sift fact from fiction, and give to my Eastern 
friends and readers a work that I candidly believe will be the 
means of saving you many dollars, and many weeks of travel 
and research to get yourself suitably located, should you come 
to this country. 

Should you come to this country with no fixed idea of what 
particular county or locahty you expected to search over for a 
home ; and should you bring your family, you would have to 
leave thetn at some hotel in Portland, or some other town, 
while you looked over the country. All this would cost money; 



1^6 WASHINGTON TEEKITOBY. 

and should you devote three months to steady and continued 
travel, even then you would not be as well informed as you 
would be after reading this little book. 

The author of this little work has spent six years of continued 
travel over all the counties of Western Oregon and Western 
Washington, from the Cahfornia line to the British Possessions; 
and in the occupation of a canvassing agent, my traveling was 
done on foot— a mode of travel that gave me every opportunity 
to see and closely observe the country through which I passed'; 
and I have visited nearly every city, town, village or hamlet 
from California to New Westminster, British Columbia. 

The greater part of this work is taken from my own per- 
sonal observations ; and for the rest, I am indebted to other 
parties for placing in my hands the desired information. 

I am under obligations to the Oregonian chiefly, and some 
little to the Coos Comity Herald, as also the Snohomish 
Eye. But to the best of my knowledge, everything in this 
work can be depended upon as being strictly reliable and 
trustworthy information. 

I do not own a foot of land either in Oregon or Washington. 
I am not interested in any railroad company or immigration 
bureau. I wrote this work for two purposes, viz : to make 
a few dollars in the sales of my book, and to give to people 
of the Eastern and Northern States information that I believe 
is desired by, and will be of much benefit to them. 



No other Hailwaf in the Hoiwest 

has in so short a period gained the reputation 
and popularity enjoyed by the WISCONSIN 
CENTRAL LINE. ' From a comparatively un- 
known factor in the commercial world, it has 
been transformed to an independent, influential, 
grand Through Route, with magnificent 
depots, superb equipment uud unsurpassed ter- 
minial facilities. Through careful catering to 
details, it has won for itself a reputation for sol- 
idity, safety, convenience and attention to its 
patrons, second to no railroad in the country. 
Pullman sleepers, models of palatial comfort, 
dining cars in which the cuisine and general 
appointments are up to the highest standard, 
and coaches especially built foi this route, are 
among the chief elements which have contrib- 
uted towards catering successfully to a discrim- 
inating public. Located directly on its line, be- 
tween Minneapolis and St. Paul, and Mil- 
waukee and Chicago, and Daluth and Mil- 
waukee and Chicago, are the following thriv- 
ing cities of Wisconsin and Michigan: New 
Richmond, Chippewa Fails, Eau Claire, 
Ashland, Hurley, Wis., Ironwood, Mich., 
Bessemer, Mich., Stevens Point, Neenah, 
Menasha, Oshkosh, EondduLac, Wauke- 
sha, and Burlington, Wis, 

For detailed information, lowest current 
rates, berths, etc., via' this route, to any point 
in the South or East, apply to nearest Tick- 
et Agent, or address 

WM. S. MELLEN, JAMES BARKER, 

Genl. Manager, Genl. Passr. & Ticket Agt. 

Milwaukee. 

Geo. S. Batty, General Western Agent. 
No. 1^ Washington st., Portland, Oregon. 



Real Estate Notice. 



Our list of Real Estate is larpje and carefully selected (exclusive sale 
of a great part of it). We are constautly looking up good bar^ ns and 
can at any time give buyers a great advantage. ^ ^ ^ "^^ bargains, and 

f ^^Mn^ ^^«;^'^^^e 'ot« for sale in all parts of the city and its suburbs 
from $100 per lot up to the choice^ business and residence lots acrS 
improved and unimproved. ' ^^ 

XDocls: I^ropert^T. 

We have some good property of this at low price. 

-i^ore I=ropert3r. 

Suitable for platting making some of the finest additions for Portland 
East Portland and Albina. ' 

We will assist in furnishing manufacturers with building sites FREE 
and will enlist the assistance of resident capitalists to induce manufac- 
turers to locate their plants in Portland. Financial assistance will be 
given in cases where manufacturers desire to turn their concerns into 
joint stock corporations. 

We have in large or small tracts, sutible for fruit, stock raising dai- 
ry, vegetable or gram farms, improved or unimproved, at prices lower 
than they will ever be offered again. 

a?i2a:i"ber Lancis. 

We have special facilities for handling timber lands in Oregon or 
Washington Territory. * 

I>Toii-ISesicLea3Lts. 

We make safe and paying investments. Every investment made 
through us has returned the investor large profits and been perfectly 
satisfactory. We handle with equal caie large or small investments 
either with or without taking an interest in the property. 

To loan in large or small sums. 

All information cheerfully given. 

HAIOHT & DONNBR, 

\U Washington St., Portland, Or. 



T7"a,l-a.a,Tole IrLfomcLatiorL 
Relatiye to a Stopiiing Place When Yon Come to Oregon. 




TEE INTElATIflML HOTEL. 

After reading this pamphlet if you desire to migrate to Oregon, 
about the first thing you will think of is expenses necessarily to be in- 
curred before reaching your final settlement. Among those expenses 
that of "hotel bills" always figures conspicuously. On this page you 
will find a perfect picture of the INTEENATIONAL HOTEL, and 
we are free to pronounce it the only first-class one dollar a day house in 
Portland. It is located within three blocks of all railroad and steamer 
landings, is in a beautiful portion of the city, and it is properly termed 
the **Home of the Traveler." And it virtually is a "home". Upon ar- 
riving in the city you are conveyed to the hotel free of charge; your 
baggage is cared for; you are provided with good rooms; fed with the 
best the markets can supply; you are given the most valuable informa- 
tion relative to all parts of Oregon and the Pacific Northwest; made 
thoroughly acquainted with all details that will be valuable to you, 
and you are charged only $1 a day; no extra charges being made. 

The International is to-day the most thoroughly popular hotel in 
the state, from the fact that Mr. Lewiston, the proprietor, makes it a 
study to see that all of his guests are not only treated well but that they 
are saved many a dollar in the way of information that proves of great 
value to them.' We cheerfully recommend this house to those who may 
visit Portland on their way to the "Far West". 



THE OfiEGON PACIFIC RAILeOAD, 

IN CONNECTION WITH THE 

OREGON DEVELOPMEKT CO.'S STEAMSHIP LINE, 

Forms the Only Direct Route between 

AU POINTS IN CENTRAL m SOUTHERN OREGflN^ 

AND SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA. 

SHORTEST ! SAFEST ! CHEAPEST ! BEST ! 

Swift and finely appointed steamers reaching all points between Port- 
•?i .??•,! Harnsbiirg, a distance of 167 miles, ply the waters of the beau- 
itul Willamette Kiver which flows through the largest and most fertile 
valley in the Pacific Northwest. 

At Albany on the east side, and Corvallis on the West, the river 
steamers connect with the Oregon Pacific trains, and the immigrant 
sportsman or tourist seated in a luxurious coach finds himself rapidly 
whirled over a smooth, well-ballasted track the blue foothills of the 
Loast Kauge Mountains, through their grand canyons and past the 
lotty peaks that form a background of surpassing beauty to the lovely 
valleys which nestle in their shadows, on to the highly-cultivated 
fruit and dairy farms that skirt the head waters of the bay to that busv 
seaport -^ 

Nature's Sanitarixam, and tlae Only Fastiionable Wa- 
tering Place on tine Coast of Oregon. 

being also the point of embarkation for passengers to San Francisco via 
COMPANY^ ^^^ OF THE OEEGON DEVELOPMENT 

In the country served by the river and rail lines of this Company 
are still homes for the million where a diversity of taste may be satis- 
ted not isolated, as is the case in the more newly settled regions but 
within easy reach of the civilizing influence of fine schools, colleges 
and churches : > s j 

"Better a century of Europe than a cycle of Cathay." 

The leading papers proclaim, and the people admit, that since the 
opening of this new outlet for the productions of the valley-more di. 
rect than the old circuitous one via Portland, this Company by 
Its w.se and liberal policy in establishing just and reasonable charges 
has saved to the farmers over $150,000 and to the merchants over $75,- 
000 during the season of 1886-7. And the advantages so far gained are 
but a foretaste ot those which must flow from the completion of the 
Eastern division of this line. 




G. A. STEEL & CO., 

GENERAL AGENTS 

nm-mm msumiNCE npoRtiioN, 

AND 

Stats IflTestnieiit M Insurance Conipny, 

Fire i Marine Business. 



IF YOU WANT TO BUY OR SELL 

It will pay to correspond with or call upon us. 

Our list of FARMING LxA^NDS is the largest and most com- 
plete on the Northwest Coast. 

^^^^AU information given by us will be reliable and trust- 
worthy. Address, 

O. A. SXHBI. & CO., 
No. 127^ First St., Portland, Oregon. 




Opposite the Postoffice, PORTLAND, OR. 



All kinds of Work executed at reasonable rates. 



VIEWS OF ALL PARTS OF THE COUNTRY 

on hand constantly. 
^|^=^Send for Catalogues. 

BAKER'S * HOTEL 

CHAS, BAKER, Proprietor, 

ETJ-g-eaa-e Oit3r, - - Oregron- 



Tliis new three-story Brick Hotel is fire-proof, 
and the best Hotel south of Portland. 

Board, $1.00 to $2.00 per Day. 

Special Rates to Immigrants. 

Particular attention paid to Traveling Men. The 

table will be supplied with the best 

the market aflFords. 

l|^=*»Free Coach to and from the House. 



// will pay all Farmers to call at the immense 
warerooms of 

STATER I WMR, 

New Market Block, 

13 to 29 First St., and 12 to 28 Second St., 

Portland, : Oregon, 

Where will be found the Largest and Most Complete Line of the very best and 
latest improved 

Farm, Dairy and Mill Machinery, 

Wagons, Buggies, Carriages and Carts, 

fflflCHINE SUPPLIES UND SPECIALTIES OF ALL KINDS, 




At the most favorable terms and prices, quality considered, of any firm on the 

Coast. 

All our goods are special lymanufactured'for use in tljis section by the oldest 
and most reliable manufacturers in the United States, and we guarantee them 
superior to anv others of their class in the market. 

>^=-Call and see us, or send for our handsomely illustrated Catalogues and 
price r.ists, sent free on application. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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